Posted on 04/17/2016 6:46:33 PM PDT by Seizethecarp
A plane approaching Heathrow Airport is believed to have hit a drone before it landed safely, the Metropolitan Police has said.
The British Airways flight from Geneva was hit as it approached the London airport at about 12:50 BST with 132 passengers and five crew on board.
After landing, the pilot reported an object - believed to be a drone - had struck the front of the Airbus A320.
Police said no arrests have been made.
If confirmed, it is believed to be the first incident of its kind in the UK.
A British Airways spokesman said: "Our aircraft landed safely, was fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Bet right after that little POS bounced off the hull the airframe asked: “What the hell was THAT, a mosquito?” Good thing it didn’t get et by an engine, though...
I saw on the news on one of those rare times I actually watch it, that there have been a lot of close misses in the U.S.
I believe they mean it collided with a drone.
Good thing the drone didn’t have any triggered C4 on it.
Exactly.
One of these days some terrorist will send up a dozen with his buddies to deliberately fly into the engines as the planes take off.
That was my first thought, too. Dry run. Next time it’ll likely go boom.
The engines are really tough and are tested by launching(believe it or not)a frozen turkey into the engine while running.
Wow. An engine surviving a frozen turkey seems impossible, but would be great if true. I thought a plain bird strike could shred an engine
This AM FOX News says this is the first time a drone has struck an airliner “anywhere”.
Practice?
“The engines are really tough and are tested by launching(believe it or not)a frozen turkey into the engine while running.”
To simulate actual conditions unfrozen birds are used, to the best of my knowledge.
I would expect that large frozen birds, such as Canada Geese, would be encountered in the air by aircraft only in the most extreme circumstances!
It becomes scarier if you combine four or five drones with software to play follow the leader, then operator controls the lead drone in the direction of engines. Result is like drone shotgun pellet spread.
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