Engines on planes are made to chuck a flock of birds without exploding, i think the plane would have been "fine" (aka no human casualties) even if it did hit the drone.
Assuming it was a quad-copter not an actual military drone.
The one instance that comes to mind of an airliner encountering an entire flock of birds, both engines were destroyed and they made a rather spectacular landing in the Hudson river.
Airliners are made to withstand bird strikes, but that doesn't mean they escape with no damage. I agree that there probably would have been no casualties if the plane had hit this drone, but it's not exactly a guarantee. It could have easily taken out an engine, and then a mistake or further equipment failure while handling the emergency could have caused a crash. The odds are good that everyone would be fine, but we're talking something like a mere 99.9% chance that everything would be fine (minus a couple million dollars to fix the engine), rather than the one-in-a-billion odds we're accustomed to seeing for air travel.
I'm fairly confident it would destroy the jet engine. The shrapnel from the drone is likely to blow the very tight tolerances between the compressor blades and the body of the jet engine, causing jams.
What brought down Flight 1549 was damage to the core of both engines. If the birds just damaged the fans, then the aircraft probably would have been able to return and land safely.
I'd be more concerned about a DJI Phantom type drone going through the windscreen of a light aircraft and injuring the pilot.
This might be a naive question, but what would happen if a hobby drone collided with a jet? As long as it doesn't hit the engines, wouldn't the damage be negligible?
The drone penetrated the wing and broke spars. It is very easy for such an impact to also destroy control surface cabling, wiring, or hydraulics which certainly can cause a plane crash.
I'm not an aviation expert, but it's not implausible to me that the propeller is fragile enough to get bent by a stream of jet fuel traveling at fighter-jet speeds.
On the contrary, a mid-air collision that just bends a couple of propeller blades and not the rest of the drone seems like either incredible flying or incredible luck.
It doesn't surprise me that military pilots aren't afraid of drones. They're not even afraid of flying into a 1000 pound airplane. Maybe if his plane didn't have an ejection seat...
I mean, this isn't even someone toying around with a quad and not realizing there was serious air traffic in the area. They repeatedly ignored the FAA telling them to knock it off with the drones around jumbo jets.
One would think the pilot would be professional enough not to fly a manned aircraft into a collision with an unmanned aircraft. Such an extreme display of ineptitude speaks enough on its own; the USAF statement reads pretty tongue-in-cheek to me.
Edit: This appears to be the most opposed/downvoted comment I seem to have ever made on HN without anyone producing a counterargument.
But failures don't always go for a 23-mile joy-ride into restricted airspace. That's kinda cool.
As to damage, given the size, probably not a whole lot if it just died and fell. Might kill someone who's incredibly unlucky. But consider if it flew around at a really low altitude: power lines, people, windows, all in range of the blades. Given that it went 23 miles on its own, having working ground-avoidance software isn't an unreasonable assumption.
Assuming it was a quad-copter not an actual military drone.
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