A police drone operator’s task-saturation, the lack of training for a visual observer and the unsuccessful traffic scan used by the flight instructor and student pilot in a small airplane contributed to the 2021 collision of a DJI Matrice M210 and a Cessna 172N near a Toronto airport, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) says.
No one was injured in the midair collision, but the airplane’s front left cowl was damaged and the 6.14-kg (13.5-lb) drone was destroyed in the Aug. 10, 2021, accident near Toronto/Buttonville Municipal Airport. The flight instructor and student pilot, who had been flying the Cessna on final approach to the airport, landed and —suspecting a bird strike — inspected the airplane. They saw damage on and beneath the propeller but no indications that a bird had struck the airplane.
Soon afterward, the York Regional Police officer told the airport staff that he believed the drone he was operating had collided with an airplane. The …
