Drone or Bird: A Review of Recent NTSB Investigations of Mid-Air Collisions between Aircraft and Smaller Objects

The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent federal agency charged with investigating transportation accidents across aircraft, rail, pipeline, marine, highway, and hazardous materials platforms. Among these transportation events the agency investigates are those of collisions between general aviation aircraft and other airborne objects. While these have typically been with birds in flight, the recent proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or ‘drones’ have cause concern throughout the industry as to the damage they may impart during a collision. This presentation will review several cases of mid-air collisions between birds, small unmanned vehicles, and other airborne objects from the perspective of the NTSB Materials Laboratory in concert with the Smithsonian Feather Identification Laboratory, including methods and techniques used to differentiate between these events.