A recent post by LuvMyTJ (do I even want to know what a TJ is?) led me to researching laser pointer incidents. As many of the regulars here know I have a boilerplate response to the press listing things people should worry about with drone accidents being the last. Here's what I found.
There are 18 laser incidents reported to the FAA every day.
According to the FAA no pilot's eyes were permanently damaged and most flights continued without further incident, but a few did have to abort the landing and do a missed approach. The effect in the cockpit is like a flashbulb going off when your eyes are already night-adapted. In other words, temporary blindness. Not something you want to happen when you are just a few hundred feet from landing.
So, here is where it fits in my list of things to worry about. (Feel free to copy this when you reply to an editorial that describes personal drones as the apocalypse.)
Today (if this is an average day in the US):
1560 people will die from Cancer
268 people in US hospitals will die because of medical mistakes.
162 people will be wounded by firearms in the US.
117 Americans will die in an automobile accident.
98 people in the US will die from the flu.
53 people will kill themselves with a firearm.
46 children will suffer eye injuries.
37 will die from AIDS.
30 people will die in gun-related murders.
18 pilots will report a Laser Incident
3 General Aviation airplanes will crash in the US.
0 people will be seriously injured or killed by a small drone accident.*
Zero. Why are so many otherwise rational people so terrified of zero?
The panic, here, is completely out of any sort of proportion to reality.
* I have to add the asterisk because too many otherwise reasonable people think a band-aid is a serious injury. CFR 49 §830.2 contains the definition of "Serious Injury" that the FAA and NTSB use in their aircraft and vehicular accident statistics. It is important to hold small UAS accidents to the same metric, otherwise comparisons are meaningless. There is not one verifiable report of a drone crash that resulted in a serious injury as defined by the NTSB to someone not connected to the flight. Not one.
There are 18 laser incidents reported to the FAA every day.
According to the FAA no pilot's eyes were permanently damaged and most flights continued without further incident, but a few did have to abort the landing and do a missed approach. The effect in the cockpit is like a flashbulb going off when your eyes are already night-adapted. In other words, temporary blindness. Not something you want to happen when you are just a few hundred feet from landing.
So, here is where it fits in my list of things to worry about. (Feel free to copy this when you reply to an editorial that describes personal drones as the apocalypse.)
Today (if this is an average day in the US):
1560 people will die from Cancer
268 people in US hospitals will die because of medical mistakes.
162 people will be wounded by firearms in the US.
117 Americans will die in an automobile accident.
98 people in the US will die from the flu.
53 people will kill themselves with a firearm.
46 children will suffer eye injuries.
37 will die from AIDS.
30 people will die in gun-related murders.
18 pilots will report a Laser Incident
3 General Aviation airplanes will crash in the US.
0 people will be seriously injured or killed by a small drone accident.*
Zero. Why are so many otherwise rational people so terrified of zero?
The panic, here, is completely out of any sort of proportion to reality.
* I have to add the asterisk because too many otherwise reasonable people think a band-aid is a serious injury. CFR 49 §830.2 contains the definition of "Serious Injury" that the FAA and NTSB use in their aircraft and vehicular accident statistics. It is important to hold small UAS accidents to the same metric, otherwise comparisons are meaningless. There is not one verifiable report of a drone crash that resulted in a serious injury as defined by the NTSB to someone not connected to the flight. Not one.
