The unknown effect of Drone collision

The first-ever reported collision between a drone and a commercial airliner has rattled the aviation world and led to the realization that engineers know almost nothing about how a drone could damage a turbojet engine — an unlikely but potentially deadly scenario..After years of warnings from aviation experts, a drone struck a British Airways jet as it approached London's Heathrow airport the previous week.

If this report is to be believed, the 137 crew and passengers of the BA727 flight on 17 April were among the unluckiest people on the planet. It appears their Airbus A320 collided with a small drone on approach to London Heathrow airport from Geneva. The exact circumstances remain under investigation, the jet landed safely and all 132 passengers and five crew were fine, but the collision comes as pilots around the world are reporting record numbers of drone sightings, often close to busy airports.
When it comes to life and death in the skies, aviation engineers usually test for every eventuality, but the popularity of recreational drones has outpaced both regulation and safety research. There are an estimated 500,000 drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), in the U.S. alone, a fact that has sent the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scrambling to write new regulations. Transport Canada is also updating regulations, with new rules expected next year.

A study released by George Mason University in March estimated the odds of a toy drone collision with a manned aircraft as one in 1.87 million flight hours. The point of the study was to undermine the safety concerns that prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration to act last December – very late, some might suggest – to register the estimated 1 million toy unmanned air vehicles already purchased in the USA.
Since aviation safety regulators and aircraft insurers can tell you precisely how much damage an 3.6kg (8lb) Canada goose will cause to an aircraft from a possible bird strike, no such data is currently available on UAV impacts, because nobody has performed an impact test yet.. Extrapolating from the FAA’s bird collision data, Texas engineering firm Aero Kinetics released a study last November. A drone ingested by the fan should cause “catastrophic failure” of a turbine engine, was the conclusion.

As more data is collected, it will likely spur fundamental changes in the drone industry, according to Mark Aruja, a policy strategist with Unmanned Systems Canada. He stated that many drones, including hobby and commercial models, will eventually be outfitted with a satellite positioning system known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B). It's a "sense and avoid" technology that would help commercial jets and air traffic controllers monitor every drone in a particular airspace. It is already a standard technology in commercial aviation, but until recently, has been prohibitively expensive or too bulky to affix to many drones. "Everything is advancing so rapidly right now, this is something that could be a reality in the coming years," says Aruja.

In any case, the most substantial danger UAVs present to the aviation industry today is not the risk of impact, but the uncertainty. Drone collision studies with aircraft and turbine engines need to be funded immediately cause disaster is waiting to happen.