Drone sightings are up, but the FAA hasn't confirmed any plane collisions yet

By Hillary K. Grigonis February 24, 2017

drone drunk new jersey 54229732 male pilot controlling with remote control — leolintang/123RF

The latest Federal Aviation Administration reports show a growth in the number of pilots reporting potential encounters with drones but the organization has yet to confirm any of the unmanned aerial vehicles hitting an aircraft in the U.S.

The report, released on Thursday, details possible drone sightings from February through September 2016. The FAA identified 1,274 potential sightings, while the same time frame the previous year only produced 874 reports.

“Although the data contain several reports of pilots claiming drone strikes on their aircraft, to date the FAA has not verified any collision between a civil aircraft and a civil drone,” the FAA wrote in an updated release. “Every investigation has found the reported collisions were either birds, impact with other items such as wires and posts, or structural failure not related to colliding with an unmanned aircraft.”

Operating drones near airports, airplanes, and helicopters is illegal and could lead to fines and jail time. The FAA uses a B4UFLY app to help hobbyist pilots determine where it’s safe to fly, while commercial drone pilots need to pass a test that includes understanding maps showing where flights are restricted.

While consumer drone sales doubled in 2016 at the same time the number of potential drone collisions was reported, the FAA says the reports contain a number of collisions with birds and other objects unrelated to drone flight. Every potential drone sighting near an aircraft, whether reported by pilots, law enforcement or civilians, is investigated, the FAA says.

“Reputable analyses of FAA data show that many ‘possible drone sightings’ turn out to be perfectly legitimate drone flights, or objects that clearly are not drones, and we expect these latest reports will show the same pattern,” said Kara Calvert, the Executive Director of the Drone Manufacturers Alliance. “The Drone Manufacturers Alliance expects all our members’ customers to fly safely, responsibly and far away from airplanes and helicopters. That’s why our members are constantly developing new technology to enhance safety, while working closely with the FAA and promoting its Know Before You Fly campaign to encourage educated flight.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Hillary K. Grigonis

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…

News

UPS gets FAA clearance to roll out a fleet of delivery drones

ups gets faa clearance for drone delivery program uav

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave UPS the go-ahead to create a fleet of drones to deliver packages with very few limitations on Tuesday, the first time it's given such broad permission to a delivery company.

The move essentially will allow UPS to create its own drone airline. The company's UPS Flight Forward program now has full FAA Part 135 Standard certification to operate a fleet of drones beyond an operators’ line of sight and the ability to fly drones at night. The company's Matternet drones will at first be used for the delivery of medical products and specimens.

News

Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards

Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Entertainment

AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying

Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."