You're grounded
A man from Cambridgeshire has become the first person in the UK to be prosecuted for breaching the Air Navigation Order and flying a drone in the vicinity of another aircraft.
In December of last year, a National Police Air Service helicopter was being used at night to assist a ground search for a missing woman along the banks of a river when the crew became aware of the drone buzzing around underneath the aircraft and sometimes moving into the path of its night-vision camera.
Not knowing how big the craft was, who was controlling it, or what its flight path might be, and unable to see it with the naked eye, the pilot was forced to abort the search and withdraw to a safe distance. Once the crew had identified the object as a quadcopter drone, they were able to observe its return path to the home of the owner, Sergej Miaun, and passed the information to the ground police.
When officers visited Miaun, he first denied possessing a quadcopter, and claimed it must have been the neighbours. However, police discovered the £900 drone hidden in the loft. Miaun later said that he saw police lights over the A47 road, assumed it was a traffic crash, and flew his drone approximately half a mile to get a better look. He claims it was a clear night so he could clearly see his drone, (which is unlikely even in daylight at a half mile distance), but he also said he only realised the police helicopter was present when it turned its spotlight on the drone, at which point he flew the drone back to base.
Miaun was convicted of failing to maintain direct, unaided visual contact with a small unmanned aircraft and flying a small unmanned aircraft when not reasonably satisfied that the flight can be safely made. He was fined £184, plus £280 costs, and had the drone confiscated.
This month the Civil Aviation Authority has also for the first time issued a temporary grounding order against a make of drone, after a 3.8 Kg DJI Matrix 200 drone inexplicably lost all power and plummeted to the ground. No-one was injured, and no property damaged, but it is still prudent to ground this model of drone whilst the problem is investigated. How many owners of the affected drones have respected the grounding order is unknown.
30th November 2018
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.