China deployed
more than 1,200 troops and scrambled fighter jets in response to an unauthorized
flight near Beijing airport by what turned out to be a mapping drone, state-run
media reported recently.
What
is a drone?
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as
a drone and referred to as a Remotely Piloted
Aircraft (RPA),
is an aircraft without a
human pilot aboard.
Its
flight is controlled either autonomously by on board computers or by the remote control of a pilot on the ground
or in another vehicle.
The typical launch and recovery method of an unmanned
aircraft is by the function of an automatic system or an external operator on
the ground.
They are usually deployed for military and special operation applications, but also used in a small but growing number
of civil applications, such as policing and firefighting, and
nonmilitary security work, such as surveillance of pipelines. UAVs are often
preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty or
dangerous" for manned aircraft.
Three men were being prosecuted over the incident,
the China Daily said.
It cited prosecutors as saying that 1,226 military
personnel, 123 military vehicles, 26 radar technicians, two fighter jets and
two helicopters were sent into action after the aircraft was spotted on radar
screens.
Police arrested two men as they flew the drone and a
third confessed later, according to the paper, which is published by the
government. All three men worked for an aviation technology company, the report
said, and the 2.3-metre-long (7.5ft) drone was intended to be used for survey
and mapping purposes.
China forbids any flights, manned or unmanned,
without prior approval from the air force, civil aviation authorities and the
local air traffic control bureau.
A New Zealand man was briefly detained by police in
June after he flew a camera-equipped drone over the Forbidden City, a popular
tourist site and former residence of China’s emperors, which sits next to
China’s top-secret leadership compound.
The Beijing airport drone incident, which happened a
while back, caused 10 flights to be delayed, the newspaper added.
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