Remote-controlled airplane flies over Hull Prison

Criminals are suspected of making a drone strike on the Hull Prison — possibly delivering a cargo of drugs via remote-controlled airplane.

It’s an approach to which the guards’ union says the province needs to find a solution before it becomes more common.

The little airplane is suspected of dropping a package as it flew over the open area in the prison yard Sunday, said Stéphane Lemaire, provincial president of the union. If there was a payload, it quickly disappeared. The drone flew away and hasn’t been seen since.

“If they are able to deliver drugs, then they can deliver other small objects — small cellphones, weapons.”

But delivering drugs is the most lucrative, he said.

It has happened “a few times” at different prisons in Quebec, he said. And in the Gatineau there’s no way to trace the drone’s owner, who could be several kilometres away, guiding it by using a camera on the drone that sends video to a cellphone.

Drug traffickers have tried to deliver drugs to the prison yard before, either by throwing a tennis ball with drugs inside over the fence, or even shooting an arrow with drugs attached, he said.

But the new tactic is more sophisticated, and Lemaire said radiocontrolled aircraft capable of making the drop cost just a few hundred dollars on eBay and the price is falling. Possible defences might include a net strung high over the prison yard, or even shooting down the drones “like clay pigeons.” That’s a problem in the case of Hull Prison because the bullets might come down in a residential neighbourhood.