Researcher: More U.S. Planes Hit Turtles Than Drones | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-07.07.25

Airborne-NextGen-07.08.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.25.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-06.26.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.27.25

Mon, Dec 28, 2015

Researcher: More U.S. Planes Hit Turtles Than Drones

Nearly 200 Turtles Have Been Struck By Airplanes Since 1990, No UAVs In The U.S.

In a report meant to be humorous and yet point out that the federal government may be over-reacting to the potential for accidents involving UAVs, a researcher dug into the FAA's Wildlife Strike Database and found that there have been 198 confirmed turtle strikes by airplanes between January 1, 1990 and July 31, 2015.

That compares to 0 confirmed collisions between airplanes and UAVs, though the reports of near-collisions and other incidents has been rising sharply.

The researcher is Eli Dourado. "I picked turtles because turtles are funny," Mashable reports he told the magazine Popular Science. He said that given the disparity between collisions with turtles and UAVs, "maybe we're worrying too much about collisions with drones."

Still, it is obvious that turtles have been around a LOT longer than UAVs. And while it is pretty much a given that a turtle would not collide with an airplane while in flight (though we've heard of stranger things), UAVs sharing airspace with manned aircraft make a collision between those aircraft a much more likely scenario. And the results would likely be far worse.

We report this story only to point out that comparisons can be made for anything ... and in this case, comparing UAVs to turtles is a bit like comparing apples to a barbeque grill. No matter what you fly. Be sure to fly safely.

FMI: http://wildlife.faa.gov

Advertisement

More News

NTSB Prelim: Piper PA-23

Pilot Also Reported That Due To A Fuel Leak, The Auxiliary Fuel Tanks Were Not Used On June 4, 2025, at 13:41 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-23, N2109P, was substantially damage>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: One Man’s Vietnam

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): Reflections on War’s Collective Lessons and Cyclical Nature The exigencies of war ought be colorblind. Inane social-constructs the likes of racis>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Capella Aircraft Corp FW1C50

Pilot Reported That He Was Unfamiliar With The Single Seat Amateur-Built Airplane And His Intent Was To Perform High-Speed Taxi Testing Analysis: The pilot reported that he was unf>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: Timber Tiger Touts Curtiss Jenny Replicas

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): First Kits to Ship October 2023 Having formerly resurrected the storied shape of the Ryan ST—in effigy, anyway—Montrose, Colorado-based Tim>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (07.04.25): Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO]

Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO] Area navigation based on performance requirements for aircraft operating along an ATS route, on an instrument approach procedure or in a d>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC