Nosy drone at Tawa fire sparks collision warning
A rubbernecking drone pilot was told to ground it shortly before a helicopter arrived at a large scrub fire north of Wellington on Monday.
The incident was seen by a Stuff reporter about 5pm in a car park opposite the blaze at Tawa, near State Highway 1.
Porirua senior station officer Owen Woodman said he was told about a drone being in the area before boarding a helicopter to survey the fire. ‘‘It came up in the preflight discussion. There was an unconfirmed report of a drone which was seen over the Countdown [supermarket] car park.’’
He declined to comment further on the incident but said drones presented a risk to emergency services when aircraft were being used.
He urged people to keep their drones on the ground during emergency situations. ‘‘They are a hazard that can be eliminated simply by [people] not flying them. If a collision did happen ... we could have a tragic outcome.
‘‘People should just desist and hold their natural curiosity in check.’’
Neither police nor Fire and Emergency had any record of a drone being present at the Tawa incident.
Kapiti Heliworx operations manager Dennis Young said the presence of drones at emergency events were an unnecessary risk for pilots. He felt that their operators ‘‘need to be stood on’’.
‘‘It’s an added hazard which the pilot has to think about, on top on a number of other things. [Drones] are just not visible. You can’t see them and they are unpredictable.
‘‘It’s only a matter of time before there is a collision, there’s no doubt about it.’’
Young, who did not attend the Tawa fire, said emergency events often required low-level flying, which made pilots and crews on the ground particularly vulnerable.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it was investigating the suburban Wellington incident.
CAA special flight operations and recreational aviation manager Clayton Hughes said the authority took cases of drones interfering with aircraft operations at emergency events seriously.
Recorded incidents were rare, and the response depended on the risk presented to others, he said.
The CAA could pursue a range of actions, from educating operators in low-risk situations to punitive measures for more dangerous incidents. ‘‘If someone is flying a drone around other manned aircraft, we may go to punitive [measures] straight away.’’