Here's the CADORS report on that incident. Go to:
CADORS: Query and search for CADORS number: 2020P0775
Note the CADORS report list the drone as a "
FLIR SkyRanger R60 - 2.4 kg". But that's merely the published weight of the drone itself without payload. It would surely have been carrying sophisticated camera gear.
It is curious that incident happened way back in February, but wasn't reported in the CADORS system until June. Is that due to police secrecy about their operations? The incident occurred during aerial surveillance operations conducted against the Wet’suwet’en protests over pipeline construction across their territory.
See GlobalNews report:
RCMP helicopter and drone collided during Wet’suwet’en protests in northern B.C.: TSB report
Even more curious, that GlobalNews report goes on to mention the Oct 2017 incident as the "
only other mid-air collision in Canada that has been investigated by the TSB". That incident was flogged by the media and authorities, trumpeted as the
first documented case (in the entire world) of a mid-air collision between a drone and passenger aircraft. It prompted Transport Canada to overnight issue Interim Rules imposing all sorts of stringent restrictions on drones. And yet, we only have the pilot's opinion that it was a drone they'd hit. There was never any proof that it actually was a drone.
Still the media touted that one as a catastrophe narrowly avoided, a drone almost brought down an airliner over crowded Quebec City. Even this latest GlobalNews clip inserted a photo of what they think is a "consumer drone" along with a Porter Airlines Dehavilland, when in fact nobody knows anything about the type of drone (if it even was one), and the plane was a much smaller Beechcraft King Air A100. The damage was a tiny dimple in the leading edge of the wing with some scratches to the paint. "
The damage was minor and had no effect on the airworthiness of the aircraft. The aircraft was returned to service the same day." Check out the photos in the TSB report for that one:
Aviation Transportation Safety Investigation Report A17Q0162 - Transportation Safety Board of Canada
Do a Google search on "drone hits plane quebec" and you'll see all the hysterical reporting generated by that incident. And yet, now we have an actual documented case of a large commercial drone colliding with a helicopter, causing damage to the main rotor, the tail structure, and even the tail rotor, and the pilot merely felt a vibration. "
The helicopter suffered some initial vibration and the pilot completed a precautionary landing on a road without further incident."
Weren't we all led to believe that a "consumer drone" was capable of bringing down an airliner? If not that, well surely a helicopter. It merely has to touch the tail rotor, no? Well, apparently not.
That non-incident over Quebec City generated press reports around the world, and still gets mentioned in the GlobalNews article above. It resulted in knee-jerk drone regulations. Plastic bags over Heathrow, invisible drones over Gatwick, endless reports of almost-catastrophic near-misses (i.e. non-collisions), all generate more media interest and ever more regulations.
Yet here we have an actual documented (non-catastrophic) collision between a police-operated industrial-sized drone and a police-operated helicopter carrying three people, and the incident is buried?!? We're only hearing about it now because four months later it has finally appeared in the CADORS system? That's bizarre.
