Drone Spotted Near Southwest Flight on Approach to Dallas Love Field

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a drone was spotted flying near a Southwest Airlines jet Friday afternoon near Dallas Love Field Airport.
Southwest flight 28 from Houston to Dallas was about a mile from Love Field when the quad-copter drone was spotted near the left wing of the Boeing 737.

Drone Spotted Near Southwest Flight on Approach to Dallas Love Field

Are we right around the corner form a terrorist taking down a jet?

Are we right around the corner from an idiot taking down a jet?

So with the advent of these drones becoming more and more popular, it seems to me that if someone wanted to, per say, ban them outright, the best way to accomplish this would to be a false flag style event where a government worker could just fly these drones close to an airport, and possibly down a jet.

For that matter, so could a terrorist.

Attach some explosives to a drone and well, you could pretty much get it into anywhere pretty easily.

What say you ATS?

Are bans on drones justified? It seems more and more it is coming right around the corner?

Could a false flag attack be done using a drone to help push the people of the US further towards a goal of war in the Middle East with ISIS?

Could this be terrorists doing dry runs on the idea of downing a jet?

From some tweets on this particular episode, the drone sounded pretty close to the jet.

The FAA have all sorts of restrictions for flight of any kind near airports. Even kites are not exempt.
Banning drones would be ridiculous based on one idiot flying one near approaching aircraft.

Find who the pilot of the quad copter was, and prosecute for endangering lives. One under the bus, and the practice will stop.

a reply to: Badgered1

For hobbyists perhaps that will be enough to stop them.

But a terrorist or a criminal could still very easily strap something on one and go for the kill shot.

No amount of legislation will stop that.

a reply to: xmaddness

FAA is gonna find someone doing this in controlled airspace and make a real example of them.

I can't imagine a quad copter would be healthy when sucked into an aircrafts engine.

a reply to: xmaddness

The FAA has the ability to restrict flight near controlled airspace, but older quads have to update their software for it to work. The newer ones will not fly into certain airspace areas.

originally posted by: xmaddness
a reply to: Badgered1

For hobbyists perhaps that will be enough to stop them.

But a terrorist or a criminal could still very easily strap something on one and go for the kill shot.

No amount of legislation will stop that.

If that's your standard for passing bans, we better make a HUGE list of stuff that needs to be outlawed.

I mean, what if a terrorist or a criminal filled a car with explosives and drove through the gate at an airfield and into a plane that's taxiing or taking off?

Knee-jerk responses are knee-jerky.

a reply to: Answer

That's the obvious stuff that I don't understand people don't get when it comes to "security theater". I've worked at places that required heavy security background checks...and have the gate wide open in the back for the freight deliveries. Hell when I worked at NASA back in 99 I remember at the building I worked at the key card system didn't even work, sometimes the door would be propped open with the smokers ash trey can to let some fresh air in.

Look at the Oklahoma bombing, the guy just parked a truck in the parking lot. End of story. How hard would it be for someone to just park at a terminal or like you said, run full speed ahead through a gate or fence.

The reason it doesn't happen all the time is because 99.9% of the people on this planet aren't homicidal maniacs, some might be a-holes but not the killing sort of a-holes. People have way to much paranoia going through their head, its pretty much the reason I stopped watching day time news a few years back.

The drones you buy at Toys R Us or on Amazon are pretty small. They can't carry anything like a weapon. Unless they were sucked into the engine of the plane, I don't really see what damage they could do to a 747.

The larger drones capable of carrying a weapon are extremely expensive, and you're probably on a watchlist if you purchase one.

originally posted by: sirChill
a reply to: Answer

That's the obvious stuff that I don't understand people don't get when it comes to "security theater". I've worked at places that required heavy security background checks...and have the gate wide open in the back for the freight deliveries. Hell when I worked at NASA back in 99 I remember at the building I worked at the key card system didn't even work, sometimes the door would be propped open with the smokers ash trey can to let some fresh air in.

Look at the Oklahoma bombing, the guy just parked a truck in the parking lot. End of story. How hard would it be for someone to just park at a terminal or like you said, run full speed ahead through a gate or fence.

The reason it doesn't happen all the time is because 99.9% of the people on this planet aren't homicidal maniacs, some might be a-holes but not the killing sort of a-holes. People have way to much paranoia going through their head, its pretty much the reason I stopped watching day time news a few years back.

Security is a facade.

ISIS is well known for using drones, so is Hezbollah. It'll happen eventually, just probably not on American soil. Over here we will just start using them for unmitigated surveillance. London is already doing that around their airports...so doing it in Dallas wouldn't surprise me either. Say what you want about the government, but they wouldnt let such a valuable tool for control be arbitrarily used for terrorism here. At least not anytime soon, there is still way too much money to be made in that industry.