Someone seems to be at it again…
Frankfurt Airport resumes flights after drone sighting | DW | 09.05.2019 – DW https://apple.news/Aty-gx—qOda8XxIB-Y3ccA
Investigation abandoned; no lines of enquiry left.
Hard to have a line of enquiry when there was never a drone in the first place!
Perfect example for how vulnerable, expensive and useless the CYA „system“ is.
It’s these drones we should be afraid of. Autonomous combat drones for the Russian air force.
Perfect example for how vulnerable, expensive and useless the CYA „system“ is.
This is a really interesting observation on our modern society.
Safety regulation is a ratchet
It takes massive balls to roll something back. I remember, maybe 30 years ago, the reversion of the temporary 50mph national speed limit to 60mph (or something like that; dual carriageways are all 70mph now). I really didn’t think they would ever do that. But despite the protests from ROSPA etc etc etc some govt minister had the balls to do it. Admittedly there was a lot of public support; people like driving! But this is exceedingly rare.
In aviation this safety regulation is totally fixed in place, safeguarded by the whole establishment, and almost nothing can ever be rolled back. Well, again, we have some really rare cases e.g. the UK self declaration medical; that was an amazing bit of work by – apparently – the LAA. Of course there is a quid pro quo: it is crippled to day VFR, UK only.
Drones are the current “go totally berserk over” item. Lots of establishment vested interests. The Airprox Board classifies every “UFO” as a drone, even where virtually implausible.
But what can an airport do? Assuming that a shutdown is mandatory upon any drone sighting, this is really effective assymetric warfare. They will have to either roll back this policy (accept that the risk of a drone bringing down an airliner is very small) or get the equipment to reliably “zap” them.
The current Gatwick solution is, it appears, to get enough equipment to show due diligence so if a drone did bring an airliner down, nobody in the chain (the airport manager, the CAA, the Secretary of State for Transport) is personally liable.
It is pretty obvious that Gatwick re-opened when the Secretary of State for Transport signed off on it, letting the CAA off the hook, in turn letting the airport manager off the hook, and this was done without being sure they have the equipment in place – because they have no idea what the drones were.
Good post Peter, I like it.
The circle of CYA closes (or actually bends into nirvana) when the responsibility of the end of the chain is only weighed in (potential loss of) political power. In other words: what „real“ responsibility does a secretary of transport really have, apart from stepping down from office (probably collecting some pension/golden handshake)?
A pilot however risks to hit the drone, the engine explodes, kills some passengers…
Maybe they should consider this:
The engine fan blades should not penetrate the kevlar “ring” around it.
Also drones are no bigger than a decent size bird. They are also flimsy – except for the battery packs but those are quite soft.
The risk should be acceptable, when weighed against bird strikes.
