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A Canadian passenger plane landed safely after it was hit by a drone in the first case of its kind in the country, a cabinet minister said Sunday.
With increasing numbers of unmanned aerial devices in the skies, collisions are still rare, but authorities around the world are looking at ways to keep jetliners out of harm's way.
The Canadian incident happened last Thursday when a drone collided with a domestic Skyjet plane approaching Jean-Lesage International Airport in Quebec City, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in a statement.
"This is the first time a drone has hit a commercial aircraft in Canada and I am extremely relieved that the aircraft only sustained minor damage and was able to land safely," said the minister, a former astronaut.
The aircraft, carrying six passengers and two crew, was struck on its right wing at an altitude of about 450 meters (about 500 yards) and roughly three kilometers (two miles) from the airport, according to Le Journal de Quebec newspaper.
Well, don't keep us in suspense! Who won, the locomotive or the bumblebee?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday October 16 2017, @11:15PM
Now consider a smaller airport with a heavy amount of flight-school (inexperienced) pilots and, otherwise, planes with only one propeller-driven engine. There comes a point in flight school where newbies have their first solo flights or would have to have their first landing in fog or other poor-visibility environments.
Economics is a huge factor with aviation and to a disturbing degree, in terms of fuel cost and packing as many landings at busy airports in as short a timespan as possible. I've seen ATC fuck up and bring in 2 back to back landings in such a short timespan that the second aircraft had to abort their landing and loop around until it was safe to land.
Though it is cool seeing the occasional pusher [imgur.com] at the smaller airports.
Not really an airport freak, but with the gazillion airports around here (I dunno, 7-ish civilian airports + Lindbergh International airport and that's not including all the military airports) it's impossible not to see planes in the sky at any given moment. Lindbergh is particularly dangerous, as airline pilots have to fly over a hill and then drop altitude like a motherfucker all the way down to sea-level. We had a controversy years ago in which some greedy land developers tried to squeeze and extra few stories into a condo complex sitting at the top of the hill (and potentially in the flight path of incoming airliners).
If you fly into San Diego a lot then you've had at least a few rough-landings as a result.