A drone that crashed with a British Airways aircraft "could be a plastic bag"

The drone, which allegedly crashed into a passenger plane of British Airways (flight BA727), could actually be a plastic bag, said British Transport Minister Robert Goodwill. The minister acknowledged that the authorities have not yet confirmed that a remote-controlled vehicle was involved in the collision with the Airbus A320.

The incident occurred on Sunday over the southwestern part of London when the Airbus A320 landed at Heathrow airport, at an altitude of 520 m, that is four times higher than the maximum allowed altitude for the flight of drones. The investigation is handled by the accident investigation department and local police.

The Minister of Transport expressed some sensible thoughts to calm the public and the media, who panicked about "the first ever collision between a drone and an airplane."
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Firstly, the minister does not agree to tighten the rules for flying UAVs to protect against terrorist attacks. He insists that the current restrictions for drones are pretty strict. If the last incident really was a UAV, then it violated the current rules.

The minister said that it is much easier for terrorists to attack an airport from the ground, having carried a bomb in a backpack or drove into a car, than to organize an attack using a drone.

Robert Goodwill was also skeptical about the proposal to obligatory equip all drones with GPS navigators, which would not allow the devices to fly into protected areas - the so-called “geo-fencing” system. He warned that any attempts to introduce a geo-fence would be vulnerable to those who could “bypass this software”.

“As for the collision with the drone, which was reported on Sunday,” said the Minister, “there is no confirmation that it was indeed a drone. There was only a tweet from the local police who received a message about the collision with the drone. And the initial reports of a dent on the aircraft fuselage were not confirmed as a result - in fact, the aircraft did not suffer any damage, and there is an assumption that it could have been a plastic bag or something like that. ”

“I didn't plant the 747th at Heathrow,” says Goodwill. “But I landed on a simulator and I can say that the pilot has a lot to watch out for, so we’re not sure what he actually saw, and I think we shouldn’t be too sharp.”

Quite rarely do we hear from a government official so sober arguments on a technical topic, instead of standard sentences, restrict everything, prohibit and “adopt a law against it”.