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>Flight instructor saw a drone during low-altitude hovering exercises with a student, panicked, tried to land, and hit a bush The pilot didn’t panic. The drone

>Flight instructor saw a drone during low-altitude hovering exercises with a student, panicked, tried to land, and hit a bush The pilot didn’t panic. The drone was directly in front of the helicopter.

bri3d 9y ago
I was making an unfair inference about the pilot's mental state, so I removed it. With that being said I still strongly question the relation of the drone to the crash physically and believe the effect of the drone on the pilot's decision-making is the interesting part of this story. Landing as an evasive maneuver doesn't make a lot of sense to me and the actual cause of the crash seems to be a situational awareness issue.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  The fact is that the operation of drones is legally prohibited in certain ways to avoid any chance of drones and aircraft intercepting each other in flight. Whoever the operator of the drone is, they are wholly responsible for illegal operation of their drone and the results thereafter.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    > Whoever the operator of the drone is, they are wholly responsible for illegal operation of their drone and the results thereafter. Absolutely correct in a general sense. In this story though, it’s not exactly clear who is at fault though with the details given. - Helicopter was doing hovering drills This means they were below 400ft - Crash occurred in a remote area per article This implies they were not near an airport, but it’s inconclusive based on the article alone. It’s entirely possible the DJI pilot was flying on his/her own land. - both instructor and student said they saw the drone Doesn’t indicate how far away the drone was however. I have a feeling though either the quadcopter pilot was either flying FPV (aka in violation of the line of sight rule) or wasn’t giving appropriate clearance to the helicopter, so ultimately they could partially be at fault. Overall, it seems to me the root cause was the instructor overreacting. The instructor should’ve landed the helicopter if they didn’t have situational awareness enough to know a tree was nearby. Replace “drone” with any other object in the air (say a kite flown by a kid or a bird or whatever) and would you have the same “blame goes to the other party, not instructor” perspective?
- thaumaturgy 9y ago
  I wish people wouldn't armchair-quarterback people in situations that are (likely) completely outside of their experience. I've gone through some helicopter safety training for SAR, and been picked up and dropped off by a UH-60. The pilots spend a lot of time briefing us on all of the things they are nervous about, and there are a lot of things that they're nervous about. All of our gear has to be tight and secure. Don't have our trekking poles on our backs (common). Some of it is about passenger safety -- where and how to approach depending on the situation -- and some of it is about the safety of the craft. When doing a hoist by air, there are a lot of things that can go wrong and many of them will be fatal for the helicopter. We have a tag line that is used to stabilize a litter as it's being lifted, because rotor wash makes the litter spin dizzyingly (and here's what that looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msw31_dw7hE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msw31_dw7hE), and occasionally the tag line or something else will get loose and end up in one of the rotors and then a lot of people have a really bad day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuQ-XG7LbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuQ-XG7LbY -- the pilot here is a total badass). The areas around, under, and above the main rotor are completely unpredictable and if the drone ends up in that and gets bounced into the fragile tail rotor, it could kill the pilot and student. The pilot knows nothing about the skill or knowledge of the drone operator; putting the helicopter on the ground is safe and prudent in that situation.
  - trevyn 9y ago
    >I wish people wouldn't armchair-quarterback people in situations that are (likely) completely outside of their experience. I have flown a helicopter on numerous occasions. One does not want to be surprised by things while doing that. Could an experienced pilot keep his cool in this situation? Of course. Is the pilot’s brain a huge factor here? Absofuckinglutely. But yes, if you’re just doing hovering exercises, there’s absolutely no reason not to just put it down if you see something unsafe nearby — you’re usually only ~10ft above the ground anyway.
  - Pyxl101 9y ago
    That first video looked terrifying. Is the cable also twisting and tangling while that’s happening, or is the litter spinning freely around it? Edit: I was expecting it to stop twisting and begin turning the other way, like string that I've played with, but it just ... never did. I can't imagine the tension that would put into the cable.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I think that's ridiculous. Pilots are correctly very reluctant to hit things. Historically, we have wanted them to do their best to avoid that. You could argue that we should now train pilots to carefully pause and consider whether the thing they are about to hit is safe to hit. But for that, you'd have to show that the additional reaction time in avoiding collisions is really net safer. And if you did argue that, you couldn't judge the current pilots by your proposed new standard. For those interested, by the way, in really thinking through accident retrospectives, I strongly recommend Sidney Dekker's "Field Guide to Human Error": https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/0754648257 https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error... I read it just out of curiosity, but it turned out to be very applicable to software development.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    Well by avoiding trying to hit one thing, they hit the ground. That's (arguably?) worse than hitting just about anything else other than perhaps another large aircraft or a missle.
    - wpietri 9y ago
      In this case, maybe. But you have to do a sum over all cases to prove that your proposed solution is better. Otherwise it's just a way, post facto, to blame somebody. An error which is one of the biggest topics of Dekker's book.
    - goldenkey 9y ago
      You do realize that the ground has a fixed force based on the landing -- while an accident at 1000 ft with a non gliding helicopter means falling to terminal velocity with certain death?
- rpeden 9y ago
  To be fair, though, making evasive maneuvers to avoid a drone isn't irrational. If the drone hit the tail rotor, it could have caused the pilot to lost control. Not long ago, a Hydro One helicopter crashed and killed four people after a tool bag came loose and hit the tail rotor [1]. It's likely that this tool bag was significantly heavier than a drone, but if you're keeping incidents like that one in mind while flying and you see a drone in your path, it's probably rational to try to evade it immediately rather than trying to decide in real-time whether the drone is massive enough to cause damage. [1] https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/12/21/unsecured-tool-bag-likely-main-cause-of-hydro-one-helicopter-crash-that-killed-4-transportation-safety-board.html https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/12/21/unsecured-too...

bri3d 9y ago

I was making an unfair inference about the pilot's mental state, so I removed it. With that being said I still strongly question the relation of the drone to the crash physically and believe the effect of the drone on the pilot's decision-making is the interesting part of this story. Landing as an evasive maneuver doesn't make a lot of sense to me and the actual cause of the crash seems to be a situational awareness issue.

wavefunction 9y ago
The fact is that the operation of drones is legally prohibited in certain ways to avoid any chance of drones and aircraft intercepting each other in flight. Whoever the operator of the drone is, they are wholly responsible for illegal operation of their drone and the results thereafter.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  > Whoever the operator of the drone is, they are wholly responsible for illegal operation of their drone and the results thereafter. Absolutely correct in a general sense. In this story though, it’s not exactly clear who is at fault though with the details given. - Helicopter was doing hovering drills This means they were below 400ft - Crash occurred in a remote area per article This implies they were not near an airport, but it’s inconclusive based on the article alone. It’s entirely possible the DJI pilot was flying on his/her own land. - both instructor and student said they saw the drone Doesn’t indicate how far away the drone was however. I have a feeling though either the quadcopter pilot was either flying FPV (aka in violation of the line of sight rule) or wasn’t giving appropriate clearance to the helicopter, so ultimately they could partially be at fault. Overall, it seems to me the root cause was the instructor overreacting. The instructor should’ve landed the helicopter if they didn’t have situational awareness enough to know a tree was nearby. Replace “drone” with any other object in the air (say a kite flown by a kid or a bird or whatever) and would you have the same “blame goes to the other party, not instructor” perspective?
thaumaturgy 9y ago
I wish people wouldn't armchair-quarterback people in situations that are (likely) completely outside of their experience. I've gone through some helicopter safety training for SAR, and been picked up and dropped off by a UH-60. The pilots spend a lot of time briefing us on all of the things they are nervous about, and there are a lot of things that they're nervous about. All of our gear has to be tight and secure. Don't have our trekking poles on our backs (common). Some of it is about passenger safety -- where and how to approach depending on the situation -- and some of it is about the safety of the craft. When doing a hoist by air, there are a lot of things that can go wrong and many of them will be fatal for the helicopter. We have a tag line that is used to stabilize a litter as it's being lifted, because rotor wash makes the litter spin dizzyingly (and here's what that looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msw31_dw7hE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msw31_dw7hE), and occasionally the tag line or something else will get loose and end up in one of the rotors and then a lot of people have a really bad day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuQ-XG7LbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuQ-XG7LbY -- the pilot here is a total badass). The areas around, under, and above the main rotor are completely unpredictable and if the drone ends up in that and gets bounced into the fragile tail rotor, it could kill the pilot and student. The pilot knows nothing about the skill or knowledge of the drone operator; putting the helicopter on the ground is safe and prudent in that situation.
- trevyn 9y ago
  >I wish people wouldn't armchair-quarterback people in situations that are (likely) completely outside of their experience. I have flown a helicopter on numerous occasions. One does not want to be surprised by things while doing that. Could an experienced pilot keep his cool in this situation? Of course. Is the pilot’s brain a huge factor here? Absofuckinglutely. But yes, if you’re just doing hovering exercises, there’s absolutely no reason not to just put it down if you see something unsafe nearby — you’re usually only ~10ft above the ground anyway.
- Pyxl101 9y ago
  That first video looked terrifying. Is the cable also twisting and tangling while that’s happening, or is the litter spinning freely around it? Edit: I was expecting it to stop twisting and begin turning the other way, like string that I've played with, but it just ... never did. I can't imagine the tension that would put into the cable.
wpietri 9y ago
I think that's ridiculous. Pilots are correctly very reluctant to hit things. Historically, we have wanted them to do their best to avoid that. You could argue that we should now train pilots to carefully pause and consider whether the thing they are about to hit is safe to hit. But for that, you'd have to show that the additional reaction time in avoiding collisions is really net safer. And if you did argue that, you couldn't judge the current pilots by your proposed new standard. For those interested, by the way, in really thinking through accident retrospectives, I strongly recommend Sidney Dekker's "Field Guide to Human Error": https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error/dp/0754648257 https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error... I read it just out of curiosity, but it turned out to be very applicable to software development.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Well by avoiding trying to hit one thing, they hit the ground. That's (arguably?) worse than hitting just about anything else other than perhaps another large aircraft or a missle.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    In this case, maybe. But you have to do a sum over all cases to prove that your proposed solution is better. Otherwise it's just a way, post facto, to blame somebody. An error which is one of the biggest topics of Dekker's book.
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    You do realize that the ground has a fixed force based on the landing -- while an accident at 1000 ft with a non gliding helicopter means falling to terminal velocity with certain death?
rpeden 9y ago
To be fair, though, making evasive maneuvers to avoid a drone isn't irrational. If the drone hit the tail rotor, it could have caused the pilot to lost control. Not long ago, a Hydro One helicopter crashed and killed four people after a tool bag came loose and hit the tail rotor [1]. It's likely that this tool bag was significantly heavier than a drone, but if you're keeping incidents like that one in mind while flying and you see a drone in your path, it's probably rational to try to evade it immediately rather than trying to decide in real-time whether the drone is massive enough to cause damage. [1] https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/12/21/unsecured-tool-bag-likely-main-cause-of-hydro-one-helicopter-crash-that-killed-4-transportation-safety-board.html https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/12/21/unsecured-too...