{"id":14380,"date":"2017-03-01T09:58:33","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T14:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/?p=14380"},"modified":"2019-06-01T09:06:18","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T13:06:18","slug":"medical-helicopter-escapes-close-call-with-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/medical-helicopter-escapes-close-call-with-drone\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Helicopter Escapes Close Call with Drone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DENTON, Texas \u2014 A medical helicopter had a close and nearly collided with\u00a0a drone Monday night.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The helicopter was en route to picking up a patient when the incident occurred.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt went right past the aircraft, CareFlite Chief Executive Officer Jim Swartz told <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcdfw.com\/news\/local\/CareFlite-Helicopter-Comes-Very-Close-to-Drone-414922323.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NBC DFW<\/a>. \u201cI would say it was very close. We were lucky nothing happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Swartz said the incident happened so quickly that the pilot did not have time to take evasive action.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI\u2019m not sure the people who fly these drones know the risk they\u2019re putting airplanes and helicopters in,\u201d Swartz said. \u201cThey\u2019re putting them at terrible risk.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The incident was reported to the Federal Aviation Administration by the pilot on the flight.<\/p>\n<p>FAA regulations prohibit drones from flying over 400 feet under any circumstances, and by law must notify control towers if they are within five miles of an airport.<\/p>\n<p><span>An FAA spokesman said the agency is investigating.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>CareFlite was established in 1979 and operates six helicopters in North Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[divider style=&#8221;4&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Want EMS and air medical tips sent straight to your inbox? Get <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>The Net<\/strong><\/span> newsletter. Sign up here (it&#8217;s free):<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span>[shortcode-variables slug=&#8221;optin-form&#8221;]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DENTON, Texas \u2014 A medical helicopter had a close and nearly collided with\u00a0a drone Monday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":621,"featured_media":14382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14380"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flightsafetynet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}