A United Airlines flight reported a midair collision between the plane and what appeared to be a drone near San Diego, according to a Wednesday statement. “United flight 1980 reported a possible drone strike just prior to arriving in San Diego. The flight landed safely, and customers deplaned normally at the gate. Our maintenance team found no damage after thoroughly inspecting the aircraft,” United said in a statement to The Hill’s sister network NewsNation. According to United, the Boeing 737 flight was headed from San Francisco International Airport to San Diego International Airport, carrying 48 passengers and six crew members. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in its own statement to NewsNation that it “is aware of the report and is investigating.” The agency said drones cannot be flown at elevations higher than 400 feet without authorization. The New York Post reported the flight struck at an altitude of roughly 3,000 feet during its approach. The outlet cited an air traffic control recording, with the pilot reportedly saying the object appeared “red” and “shiny.”
reported a possible drone strike
Look, I’m not saying it’s wrong. I just get a very different mental image when I hear “done strike”.
What like a school full of children or a journalist in a car?
Drone collision seems more accurate here.
Eh, it’s just a modification of “bird strike” which is commonly used for “plane strikes bird”
This. “Bird strike” is the accepted term for such a collision of a passenger aircraft with a bird. Thus drone strike.
Look, I’m not saying it’s wrong. I just get a very different mental image when I hear “done strike”.
Not really a big deal. Bird strikes are worse and also the neglect of the corpos banks they call airlines. Watch …Birds arn’t real they are drones now. All for a bailout or one more reason to ban something. This is the era of the ban! Ban this Ban that!!! Lock em up put them in jail. All a distraction from our imperialist empire and its decay. Actualy we need to ban birds
This is interesting because 3,000 feet is well above the software-imposed ceiling of most consumer drones. I wonder if it was an older model with fewer restrictions or something else entirely.
It’s trivially easy to bypass for a lot of the DiY kits out there. I have actually sort of assumed that at some point they would try to kill that entire flight controller ecosystem at some point under the guide of national security.
Uh oh. I’ve never really been interested in drones but this may have triggered my policy of snapping up any tech that I think is likely to get outlawed
Are you the asshole who keeps driving through my neighborhood at 1:30am with the illegal muffler modification?
The whistles go WHOO!
Oh sorry I meant plausibly useful tech
Come on, those illegal muffler mods are super useful, how else are you going to announce to an entire mile radius area that you need an electron microscope just to find your dick?
Rad, carry on!
3d printers are next. Cant be having the masses creating physical plastic products that could be sold to them instead.
Didn’t they just essentially ban DJI?
Yes
I wonder if there’s a way to trick the software limit so it thinks the ground is higher than it is, and allows a higher elevation above sea level. If you can make it think you’re in Denver when you’re actually in San Diego, it might let you fly a lot higher.
If the altimeter was disabled would the drone refuse to fly to begin with?
“Red” and “shiny” at 3,000 feet… Doesn’t a balloon sound more likely? I’m no expert but I imagine violently shredding a LiPo battery in a jet turbine would not be catastrophic but at least noticeable
There was no damage to the plane. Therefore you could safely surmise the drone did not strike the engine.
