UAV - Near miss med Merlin

Desert Hawk in Near Miss with RAF Helicopter

The British Army almost brought down a troop-carrying RAF
helicopter when one of its own drones flew within 60ft of the
giant aircraft, a report found. The £15million Merlin vehicle and
metre-long Desert Hawk surveillance drone should have been
flying in their own restricted areas. But they came close to
crashing during a massive military training exercise, as crews
blamed map-reading errors and a dispute over airspace for the
near catastrophe.

Britain’s Joint Helicopter command has been told to review its
procedures after serious errors put lives at risk.

However there was no way of telling whose fault the incident
was, experts from the UK Airprox Board, which investigates near
misses in British airspace, concluded.

The incident happened above a replica Afghan village north of
Thetford, Norfolk, which has been purpose built in the 30,000-acre
Stanford training area.

The Desert Hawk, which was charged with protecting the perimeter
of a replica base, was operated by a ground team from 1 Artillery
Brigade, while the huge troop- and supply-carrying RAF Merlin
was piloted across the exercise area at just 100ft.

All helicopter and jet pilots were warned to stay out of a four square
kilometre area reserved for the drone, which flies up to 500ft above
ground level, before the exercise began.

The Merlin crew claimed the near miss happened because the
unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and the five personnel operating it
were 300m outside their zone.

But the drone’s commander said it was in the process of landing at
the correct pre-agreed spot when the Merlin suddenly appeared
overhead.

The Airprox Board report concluded: “The UAV Operator was
instructed not to abort the landing and to ‘let it come in hard into
trees’ to avoid possible collision with the Merlin if the landing
was aborted”.

However, investigators could not decide who was to blame as there
was not enough information to show who was reading the maps
correctly.

“In the absence of any recorded information, the Board were faced
with a simple conflict in reports regarding the actual location of the
UAV ground control station and the Merlin’s ground track, which
members agreed was not possible to resolve conclusively with the
information available,” the report found.

“The Board emphasised that Airprox include all forms of aerial
vehicle, and that with the increasing use of UAV, Airprox
occurrences involving them were bound to increase.

“With this in mind, the Board resolved to recommend that in order
to ensure robust deconfliction from other airspace users, HQ JHC
consider reviewing the robustness and coordination of Remotely
Piloted Aerial Systems operations.”

Photo: The £15 million Merlin helicopter and (inset) a metre-long
Desert Hawk – EPA