I bet it was a ‘news’ drone. They all have them nowadays................
Somebody needs to go to jail.
Duct tape. She’ll be fine.
That damage could be repaired quickly and easily unless it punched into a fuel tank in the wing. If such one would need to take some skin off the wing to repair internal damage.
Now that more information is available, this damage was caused by a DJI Mini 3 Pro drone. This is a small drone very similar to two drones that I own. I am shocked that the drone made it through the leading edge of a large aircraft. But my assumptions were incorrect.
It makes me wonder if an 8 ounce drone can go through the leading edge of this plane designed to pickup 1600 gallons off the surface of a body of water... what else could cause this type of damage or worse? How about a 20-pound goose or a big eagle, or a big seabird.
We have had some close calls with big birds barely missing our windshield while flying in remote areas. It is pretty obvious that a big bird can go through the plexiglass windshield on a small plane. But I have aways felt fairly confident that they wouldn’t do a lot of damage to the wings even if there was a head-on strike.
I look over a lot of accident reports and have not noticed a situation where a wing struck by a bird caused a crash. After seeing this I suspect that it is possible, but not very probable.