Near Miss Case Study
The FAA Safety Team (FAAST) recently published a Case Study of a near miss between a drone and an emergency medical helicopter in El Paso, Texas. In this case, a drone at ~400′ AGL had a helicopter pass directly underneath it with <100′ vertical separation.
https://medium.com/faa/tips-to-avoid-collisions-between-drones-and-helicopters-c3825ae417d9
Have you ever had a near miss with a manned aircraft or other UAS?
- 1 Reply
132 
I’ve never had anything quite this close…dang. It seems the helicopters 🚁 get to do their own thing most of the time. At 300’ AGL and almost 100mph, I bet that helo came up on him quickly.
The interesting thing about this case study is that the investigators determined that even though the sUAS Pilot could see his drone, he wasn’t fully compliant with the VLOS rule since he couldn’t see all the airspace around him (due to terrain).
It’s a good reminder to always pay attention to helipads and hospitals around your flight area.