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 drone had bee…
