Drones Gone Wild- Why More Air Disasters May Be On the Way If The FAA Keeps Dragging Butt

The Youtube video of a wayward drone scoping out people below on the observation deck of the Seattle Space Needle has commanded lots of attention, as it should.  In fact, this drone - shown in an ABC segment last night - was sent on its mission by some goober in a nearby hotel - who released it from his window. This stunt followed an earlier one a month or so ago when a drone flew high over the wedding of the daughter of a congress critter (who had a hand in fashioning the 2012 bill allowing millions of these things to take to our skies by next year)  In both cases the unleashed drones were in violation of laws prohibiting such drone flight until late next year.

The existence of the relevant bill was first reported on Feb. 4, 2012 in The Wall Street Journal  ('U.S. Skies Could See More Drones', p. A7)and it came as a shocker of sorts. First, because it disclosed yet another federal agency (FAA) held hostage to the corporatist-industrial complex, now attempting to find new avenues for drone production since the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan are ending (well the first has officially ended, the second nearly may not until 2024). And second, because it discloses how secretive this corporate-benefiting information is.

Medea Benjamin made reference to the spectacle of congressional corporate compliance and being bought out by the drone makers, as she said:

 

"They’ve been able to write the drone legislation and get their lackeys in Congress to push it through and get the president to sign it.”
 

In other words, the congressional rats and whores placed the bottom line of corporations over citizen welfare. But this is what we expect in a corporatocracy.  In the case of the FAA bill, worth some $63 billion (and nearly four years in the lobbying and rewriting), U.S. skies would be inundated with tens of thousands of unmanned drones sharing airspace with commercial planes - and recall these are already at the beck and call of overworked air traffic controllers, as gauged by nearly 300 near misses per year. Imagine if they now had to contend with thousands of these unmanned drones flying who knows where?
 

Well, we no longer have to imagine! We now know how bad it can be! Records and data are now available showing dozens of near misses of commercial aircraft with drones, near major airports - highlighted in the FAA map below:



These incidents, exposed in an investigation by the Washington Post,  include one in which a pilot descending into LaGuardia observed a drone with a 10 -15 foot wingspan above lower Manhattan. In another LA incident, two separate pilots reported a drone "the size of a trash can" perilously close by.  The FAA was not able to pursue or identify the offenders because either "radar data was not available" or "the operators could not be identified." (Denver Post, 'Drone Close Calls', June 25th, p. 17A)   The Post notes that (p. 22A):

"The close calls were the latest in a rash of dangerous encounters between civilian aircraft and drones flown in contravention of FAA rules intended to safeguard U.S. airspace.."

Beyond that, the Post reports that "in 15 cases the past two years, drones flew dangerously close to airports or passenger aircraft" (including the incidents noted above in New York and LA.) The accumulating incidents so spooked one commercial pilot (Greg Cromer) that he actually wrote a letter to the FAA opposing the whole insane idea of opening U.S. airspace to these mechanical beasties, writing (ibid.):

 "I can see no way to prevent a collision with something that could be as small as a bird or a plane or kitchen appliance."

In addition, "the NASA database confirms that dangerous brushes between drones and passenger aircraft are more common than the FAA acknowledges." 

Is the FAA already co-opted and bought out? We hope to hell not!  According to the database, there've been 50 incidents since 2005, including potential disasters. Meanwhile, Chris Stephenson, an operations coordinator with the National Air Traffic Controllers' Association, described the pending integration of drones into national airspace as "a tsunami headed for the front porch". Other drone advocates (e.g. General Dynamics' Krista Ochs) are concerned with how the industry will be set back if and when the first major crashes with commercial airlines occur.  As she put it (ibid.):

"If we have a major catastrophe that involves some type of midair collision it could set us back years."


She has a point!

This past week saw three air disasters racked up, one in Ukraine (the shoot down of MH-17 with 298 onboard), one in Taiwan, and one over Africa. Nearly 500 lives lost in a skein of disasters that even has the most savvy frequent fliers biting nails. Steve Kornacki, on his show this morning, observed how the three plane disasters has him asking why (after taking 13 flights and surviving) he'd ever fly again. An aviation guest he had on said he needs to stop his "catastrophic thinking" and give control back to his rational brain.

But that will be hard for any rationalist knowing that because of a worthless, bought out congress commercial aircraft will be under constant threat when millions of unmanned drones with very few regulations, are released.

The inherent problems,  as noted by the Post report, include:

A limited ability to detect and avoid trouble. Cameras and high-tech sensors on a drone cannot fully replace a pilot’s eyes and ears and nose in the cockpit. Most remotely controlled planes are not equipped with radar or anti-collision systems designed to prevent midair disasters.

 

Pilot error. Despite popular perceptions, flying a drone is much trickier than playing a video game. The Air Force licenses its drone pilots and trains them constantly, but mistakes are still common, particularly during landings. In four cases over a three-year period, Air Force pilots committed errors so egregious that they were investigated for suspected dereliction of duty.

 

Persistent mechanical defects. Some common drone models were designed without backup safety features and rushed to war without the benefit of years of testing. Many accidents were triggered by basic electrical malfunctions; others were caused by bad weather. Military personnel blamed some mishaps on inexplicable problems. The crews of two doomed Predators that crashed in 2008 and 2009 told investigators that their respective planes had been “possessed” and plagued by “demons.”

Unreliable communications links. Drones are dependent on wireless transmissions to relay commands and navigational information, usually via satellite. Those connections can be fragile. Records show that links were disrupted or lost in more than a quarter of the worst crashes.

 

The FAA was to have issued regulations controlling drone flight in commercial airspace - but so far they are dragging their bought out asses. According to a disturbing report in The Denver Post ('Flying Blind', July 6, p. 1D)

 

"...an agency official reportedly has warned that the entire rulemaking process could take up to a decade."

 

A decade! That means the rules governing unmanned drone flight won't be available until 7 or so years AFTER the drones take to the skies!   The Post article goes on:

 

"Although rule-making for small, unmanned devices could begin by the end of the year, even the Inspector General of the Transportation Department has concluded 'the FAA will not meet the September 2015 deadline for safe drone integration and it is uncertain when it will be achieved,"

 

Then the solution ought to be obvious to our illustrious congress critters: the integration of drone flight into commercial airspace needs to be postponed! No unmanned drones going up until such time the FAA has its house in order and proper regulations published and mandated.

 

According to the piece, the FAA "disputes that it is creeping along" and even put out a pamphlet, 'Busting Myths' purporting to show how on target they are and calling out "myths and misconceptions".  One myth, according to the FAA, is that it is "lagging behind other countries in approving commercial drones."

 

But to show how Neoliberal logic has infected even federal agencies, the FAA  - as the Post article notes - "never explicitly denies it is lagging behind other countries in approving rules."

 

The Post goes on: "Because it can't.  Australia, Japan and even Britain has moved on with their own regulations".   But wait, the FAA has a built in excuse:

 

"The comparison is flawed, because the U.S. has the busiest, most complex airspace in the world" and "developing rules is a very complex task".

 

Okay, fair enough. Then delay the integration of drone craft until you have the rules in place!

 

Do not be pressured by the drone makers or their congressional whores! Do what is in the interests of the citizens for once!

 

Steve Kornacki may well worry about three airline crashes in a week - but what if that turns out to be 30 incidents a month by September 2015? That could happened if the FAA allows drones to run wild in our commercial airspace before it has solid regulations in place.

 

It is time for government to act in the interest of we the people for once, and not the corporations who are only interested in making profits.

 

Near Collision of Aircraft with Unmanned Drone Over Denver: Anyone Paying Attention?

In a blog in February:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/time-to-snuff-this-drone-bullshit-now.html

I portrayed a scenario in the near future in which a commercial aircraft collides with a large unmanned drone with massive loss of life. Now, it seems, the future may have almost arrived with the news from last week of a near collision between a corporate jet and what was described as “a large remote controlled aircraft” in Denver airspace. Obviously, while some have their eyes set on the snooping aspect of donres this incident highlights the challenges facing aviation authorities in the safety dimension.

But have our lawmakers listened? Paid attention? Nope! They've just approved a law to have up to 30,000 of these unmanned devices wafting through our skies by 2015. Obviously, all these paid whores are doing it because the military-industrial complex has notified them that if they want more campaign largesse, they better cough up the goods, because after all, the drone-makers need an outlet for their machinery after Afghanistan winds down and Karzai finally kicks our butts out.

So this way, the military industrial complex is afforded a new avenue for increased manufacture (and jacking up deficits), on the home front! Anyway, as reported by a Denver TV station last week, the pilot of a Cessna flying at 8,000 feet over Denver told air traffic controllers he had just seen an unidentified object pass by.


“A remote controlled aircraft, or what?” a nervous-sounding pilot said in conversation captured by LiveATC.net, a website that monitors air traffic control traffic. “Something just went by the other way … About 20 to 30 seconds ago. It was like a large remote-controlled aircraft.”

An FAA spokesman in Washington said, “We reviewed radar and audio communications but found no unidentified targets in the area where the Citation pilot was flying, and no other pilot reported seeing an unidentified aircraft.”


Jeebus peace! So you mean to tell me the FAA's wizards can't even discern IF an unmanned vehicle is in possession of anyone or if that missing drone was involved in a near collision with official, human-piloted air craft? Wow! If that's so, we really are in deep shit.

But a bit of FAA research would have disclosed that the only entity known to have permission to fly drones anywhere in the vicinity is University of Colorado’s Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, which has FAA authorization to fly drones over 59 separate 20 x 20-mile areas 50 miles east of Denver, according to a school website. This is a wake up call, folks, especially if the FAA can't even keep track of who or where they authorized to fly these damned things.

Stay tuned, and in the meantime maybe email your congress rats and ask them what they were thinking when they approved unmanned clutter in our airspace, threatening official, manned aircraft, even as the feds purport to still be concerned over security in our skies. Something here stinks, and it ain't in Denmark! What I do know is that financially we've got very much bigger issues to deal with - including rebuilding infrastructure- which ought to precede a $1.2 billion domestic drone manufacture program!

Weaponized Bed Bugs Now Good to Go!

One of the weaponized bed bugs soon to be tested on volunteers.

After twelve years of far reaching, intensive efforts, the first weaponized bed bugs are now being readied for their first serious tests against as yet undeclared targets. It is conjectured these will be isolated islands in the Pacific Archipelago onto which some 50 volunteers will be brought, most of them from Ft. Leavenworth - as an alternative to completing their sentences. The bugs are expected to be released by unmanned drone.

According to Col. Tom A. Fulery, head of the Ft. Carson Bio-Weapon Bug Division at Ft. Carson outside Colorado Springs, the weaponized bed bugs are different from the normal variety (which has become such a pestilence in many states) in the following ways:

- They are 40-50 % larger and more massive on average.

- Their penetrating organ is twice the length and possesses 14 times the tensile strength

- The consume at one meal about 40 times more blood, on average and hence swell to about twenty times the size of the normal engorged bug

- Unlike most normal bed bugs, these beasties are felt when they put their little proboscis into you - according to one test scientist: "It felt like being injected with battery acid!"

- Their chitin outer shells have been genetically re-designed by adding a polymer to the chitin molecule, Their outer cellulose is now as if "reinforced by titanium" according to one observer.

- Their reproductive rate is 45 times that of the regular, non-weaponized bugs.

Col. Fulery estimates that within one day of the bug drop on the selected islands, the volunteers' temporary shack quarters will be overrun by tens of millions of the bedbugs feeding on them non-stop. This is another aspect, unlike most of the regular bedbugs (which are nocturnal) these weaponized critters feed night and day.

Asked if the volunteers will have any protections at all for their stay - which Fulery estimated at one month, maybe more, he replied:

"We're not totally heartless! We will equip these volunteers with DEET, and also with several cans of Raid and a few smoke bombs to help them out. There will also be a nearby storage facility loaded with napalm, but we are advising them to only use that as a last resort because if they deploy it on their infested quarters they'll have no place to live. Also, these weaponized bugs can survive temperatures up to 1,200 Celsius!"


Col. Fulery was then questioned on the possible risk of the weaponized bed bugs escaping and say, arriving at the U.S. mainland, or even htiching a ride on one of the volunteers (even in the egg form, since they can lay 10,000 eggs a day).

He replied:

"This is not a huge concern. If the worst comes to the worst we have ways and means of controlling the weaponized bed bug outbreak and the worst effects."

Asked about the peculiar red eyes of the weaponized bed bugs, Col. Fulery merely shrugged his shoulders and quipped:

"What can I say? They have infrared eyes too! They will immediately be drawn to any sources of heat including bodies. But........we have found that they also seem to congregate very unusually around any fast food so we are telling the volunteers they can have Mickey D burgers or the Colonel's chicken only shipped in at their own risk! We recommend the volunteers stick to the islands' vast stock of available coconuts!"

Time to Snuff this Drone Bullshit ...NOW!

The time is sometime in the near future....after more than 18,000 unmanned drones have been allowed to roam freely in our skies.....sent aloft by every Tom, Dick and Harry... from farmers, to cops, to utility companies to corporate industrialists seeking to spy on competitors. At this particular junction of time and space, a large commercial aircraft has just taken off with 220 souls on board when.....three minutes later and during its ascent....a massive fireball erupts over a large municipal airport.

After months of tedious investigation and recovery of the black box - which referred to a "bogey at three o'clock" the FAA concludes the plane was struck 2 3/4 minutes after takeoff by a "Dragonflyer X6" drone dispatched into the skies by local law enforcement. While much more intensive scrutiny is promised and a possible congressional investigation....mostly unheard were the screams of thousands who said: "I told you fucking SO!"

Fantasy? Hyper imaginatiive paranoia? Don't believe it for one second! The above horrific scenario is very plausible if our lawmakers continue to sit on their fat, overpaid, useless asses and do nothing while the drone manufacturers of the military-industrial complex seek to transfer their market share to domestic drones...now that the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq are winding down.

In a previous blog I warned about this and gave the background as to who is pushing it:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-to-more-drones-in-us-skies.html

In that blog, I noted, from a piece in The Wall Street Journal ('U.S. Skies Could See More Drones', Feb. 4, p. A7) that:

"Barely hours after the 374-page bill became public pilot union officials urged a more deliberate approach. Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 53,000 pilots across North America, said his organization remains worried about safety issues such as training and certification of those unmanned aircraft."

And further (ibid.):

"Safety experts also have raised questions about the ability of sensors aboard unmanned aircraft to properly detect a nearby plane, and to assure immediate action to avoid a midair collision".

But is anyone listening or doing anything? Hell NO! According to today's paper (Denver Post, p. 2A, 'Domestic Drones Take Off!') it's damned the torpedoes (or drone safety in the air) and full speed ahead. The dollars are calling and the military industrial fuckers need new sources to ply their wares since they won't be able to churn out machines by which hidden "warriors" (thousands of miles from danger) fire on Afghan wedding parties any more. So, every two bit manjack now has a hard on to get one....even a little 'hummingbird' scale gizmo "that weighs less than a AA battery" - which can "perch on a window ledge to record sound and video"....

Hmmm ....to what end? To spy on neighbors?

Others demand the "Global Hawk" with its 116 ft. wingspan ....which at least in the case of a near mid air collision encounter should be possible for an able pilot to dodge.

As for congress? What do you expect of these bought and paid for whores? Mainly whores to the military industrial complex (the Repuke whores, get this, actually want to DOUBLE the military presence in Afghanistan after the outrage that erupted in the wake of the accidental Koran burning. In fact, this ought to be the alarm signal to get the hell out! That war is lost, hearts and minds all gone....deal with it! No more pissing $10 billion a week into the toilet). Anyway, according to the Dpost article:

"Congress has told the FAA that it must allow civilian and military drones to fly in civilian airspace by 2015"

In other words, congress is inviting a slew of mid air collisions and near collisions! All for what? MONEY! Each drone that gets made and put into the skies will put lobbyist money in their pockets, likely from the "Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International"...the industry trade group that has pushed this bullshit down the FAA's throat and used congress as the Trojan Horse to do it....with billions of dollars of money in the background. You know how that works! ;

According to one government public relations manager for the same outfit, a Ben Gielow - who could barely control his drooling:

"The potential civil market for these systems could dwarf the military market in the coming years if we can get access to the airspace.."

Yes, and at what future cost in lives?

See, these capitalist grabbers make it to be about personal privacy, but while that is definitely a worry it pales beside the insecurity of air travel with thousands of these (mostly unregulated) things in the skies and no controls. It is also colossally stupid, when you have TSA officials doing everything to protect the flying public and meanwhile,....a huge gaping security hole ten miles wide opens up in the skies because our lawmakers are craven whores. Where's the sense in that?
Make no mistake all of this is driven by money! It is all about handouts to congress via lobbying by industry swine and then congress kowtowing to the swine to issue orders to the FAA to open up "air space"......errrr...... new capitalization opportunities and higher shares for the makers of these stupid unmanned drones. Even the Defense Dept. has bought in, but then they've always been the biggest whores for the defense contractors, drone makers. They insist:

"the demand for drones and their expanding missions requires routine and unfettered access to domestic airspace, including around airports...."

Just one question here, cheeseballs: WHO or what agency is going to regulate these fuckers to ensure they comply with flight safety parameters, guidelines and they don't careen into commercial aircraft? Or are you too blinded by the green stuff to see your way to an answer?

NO, to More Drones in U.S. Skies!

The story in The Wall Street Journal today ('U.S. Skies Could See More Drones', p. A7) came as a shocker of sorts. First, because it disclosed yet another federal agency (FAA) held hostage to the corporatist-industrial complex, now attempting to find new avenues for drone production since the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan are ending (well the first has officially ended, the second nearly so). And second, because it discloses how secretive this corporate-benefiting information is, much like the recent news that 38 salmonella food poisonings were due to "restaurant chain A" (in FDA jargon) but only lately identified as 'Taco Bell'.

And we already saw a couple years ago, how deep in bed the SEC was with Madoff, and how they missed warning investors of this guy's Ponzi scheme. It appears that, one by one, fed agencies are being held captive to corporate interests, while the public general welfare takes a back seat.

In ths case of this new FAA bill, worth some $63 billion (and already four years in the lobbying and rewriting phases), U.S. skies would be inundated with tens of thousands of unmanned drones sharing airpace with commercial planes - and recall these are already at the beck and call of overworked air traffic controllers, as gauged by nearly 300 near misses per year. Imagine if they now had to contend with thousands of these unmanned drones flying who knows where?

Certainly the commercial pilots themselves aren't too enthused. As the WSJ article observes:

"Barely hours after the 374-page bill became public pilot union officials urged a more deliberate approach. Lee Moak, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents 53,000 pilots across North America, said his organization remains worried about safety issues such as training and certification of those unmanned aircraft."

The article continues by noting that: "Safety experts also have raised questions about the ability of sensors aboard unmanned aircraft to properly detect a nearby plane, and to assure immediate action to avoid a midair collision".

This is not just small potatoes and - by all rights - ought to be raising as much of a firestorm among the safety aware public as the Komen fiasco a few days ago. Moreso, because our lawmakers have sought to keep all this under wraps until it's almost a fait accompli!

And just who are these interests pushing for new drones in our skies? Well, according to the WSJ:

"Under the FAA bill proponents envision huge fleets of drones operated nationwide by states, local governments, and companies."

My question, and that of every other right-thinking American, ought to be: 'How the hell can states and local governments be remotely considering $1 billion a pop for a drone....to do whatever... when their own budgets are in the tank and benefits aren't being properly distributed?' As for companies: Why are they splurging (or thinking of splurging) on these damned things while leaving money uninvested for labor hiring and new plant? It's fucking absurd!

And just what is it these expensive unmanned machines are supposed to be doing? According to the WSJ article:

"environmental monitoring, fire protection, surveillance of suspected criminals....checking power lines and tracking equipment"

WHAT!? Needless to say, and I shouldn't have to say it, all of these can be done at much less expense and without requiring unmanned drones. For example, multiple street video cameras mounted all over can now track criminals anywhere. Moreover, the "fusion centers" provided under the Patriot Act make this as easy as companies tracking people using 'cookies' on the web. Nor do we need to risk commercial passenger safety by putting thousands of the blasted things in our skies for the specious reasons cited. In the end this is all bullshit, and the real purpose of this law is to provide an outlet for the defense industry drone manufacturers who will no longer have U.S. occupations within which to ply their trade.

Now, true ...there are limited numbers of drones already operating in U.S. skies. These are "mainly by federal agencies for law enforcement and security purposes" (ibid.) Moreover, as the article notes, they are only allowed to fly in highly restricted areas (like near the Mexican border) and this has kept their numbers low.

What we emphatically do not need is our skies flooded with these fuckers and competing with commercial craft for airspace, and likely creating even more havoc and near collisions, or outright collisions! THAT is not the way to create new jobs!

The tragedy is that the good part of the FAA bill, the one that provides for GPS satellites to reinforce ground air traffic control, is tied up with this corporate welfare drone-for-any-redundant purpose bullshit. We need to send a message to these clueless congress critters to re-do their bill, and leave out the drone manufacture and deployment for every Tom, Dick and Harry and for specious reasons that are basically bollocks.

Footnote: The photo attached, in case readers are wondering, is based on the "frankensteined" insertion of a predator drone image (I felt that was more dramatic) into a photo I took looking out from a first class seat as the flight I was on descended to Miami International in June, 2007.
It is meant to depict the likely sort of near encounters we may experience if the corporate welfare part of this FAA bill goes through!