Drone strikes in British Airways airline

Yesterday, April 17, 2016, an impact between a British Airways airliner has happened and what is believed with certainty a drone, in the vicinity of Heathrow Airport, in the landing phase of the flight from Geneva. If it is confirmed at 100% (but it is a formalities by what one understands by English sources), it would be the first incident of this type at Heathrow, some but not worldwide. On 28 November 2015 the pilot of an A321 passed only 30 meters from a drone, flying in one of the "air lanes" reserved for the air traffic of the airport of Gatwick Airport, and 30 September 2015 a helicopter-drone passed to just 10 meters from the ever cockpit at Heathrow, no impact this time.

A drone aircraft can strike sensitive areas like the glass of the cockpit or end up in the engines, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

If the size of a drone may seem ridiculous compared to an airplane, and formally they are, it is still an object that can go to the aircraft slam into sensitive areas like the glass of the cockpit or end up in the engines, with consequences potentially catastrophic, especially in very sensitive moments like the landing and take-off, in which you have no room for maneuver in case of trim loss.

Returning to the incident yesterday, the plane suffered consequences and could not be continued in subsequent flights after it was fully controlled, but the authorities intend to track down the culprit (or blame) for an exemplary punishment, which serves to raise awareness about potential dangers. In the United States it was introduced compulsory registration, to know the identity attributable to a single drone; in the UK there is strong pressure to do so, before that can happen in a severe accident.

As reported by the BBC, there are already severe penalties for those who fly a drone in the vicinity of an airport (up to 5 years imprisonment), but it is currently impossible, unless the pilot-grasp manipulator in the act, the identity of the person responsible. In short, another chapter that leads to compulsory registration, an urgency that must still submit to the slowness of institutions when it comes to legislating.