The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has released its report on a 2021 collision between a Cessna 172N plane approaching the Toronto area’s Buttonville Municipal Airport and a police drone operating in the restricted airspace without the required waiver – an incident that sparked controversy when it belatedly became public.

The collision occurred on August 10, 2021, when the plane flown by a student pilot and an instructor struck a drone being operated by the York Regional Police (YRP) on a surveillance mission to locate a possible armed individual in the area. Upon landing, the Cessna was found to have suffered damage to the front left cowl under the propeller, while the YRP’s DJI Matrice M210 was destroyed. 

When news of the incident came out 10 days later, some social media commentators took issue with the tardiness of the revelation. They also criticized the difference between the apparent indulgence a police unit operating a drone near an airport runway received compared to the harsh treatment a private pilot would rightly be in for – especially when the crash with a plane was involved.

Read: Canada: Police drone hits plane approaching runway; ‘major damage’ reported

Also questioned was why on earth the police would be flying a drone in such a potentially dangerous spot in the first place, especially without letting regulators, air traffic controllers, and pilots of planes in the area know about it.

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