(Bloomberg) — Even small toy drones can pose a significant hazard to traditional planes and helicopters in a collision, a Texas engineering company has concluded.
Drones will "most certainly" cause more damage to aircraft than birds, which have caused airliners to crash, according to the study by Aero Kinetics Aviation LLC of Fort Worth, Texas. Drones are made of solid plastics, batteries and metal, which cause greater damage in a collision compared to bird flesh, the study found.
"A head-on drone strike into the inlet of a turbine engine on a commercial airliner on approach or departure would cause severe damage to the engine and potentially a catastrophic failure," the company said in the study.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is studying the damage that a drone would cause in an impact. The FAA, which is drafting regulations to manage the rapid growth of civilian drones, has recorded more than 100 reports a month this year of pilot encounters with drones, a sharp increase over last year.
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