A Utah man is raising concerns after social media users encouraged shooting down what they believed to be an unauthorized drone, but was actually a student pilot conducting a training flight. Toby Hayes spent hours clarifying the situation and urging people to verify aircraft information before taking action.
A man who grew up in Utah is speaking out after he said social media users encouraged shooting down what they thought was an unauthorized drone — but was actually a student pilot conducting a training flight. Toby Hayes found himself spending hours responding to social media posts about his son's training flight in southeastern Idaho. 'It's scary to think that people are talking about shooting planes down,' Hayes said.
'They're really just people flying and doing what they're doing for training, for work. It's a scary time.' The incident began when a community member spotted and photographed a small aircraft flying overhead, posting it on social media with claims it was a drone. The post quickly gained traction, with some commenters suggesting shooting it down, according to Hayes. 'Social media blew up that people were seeing a drone flying over town, and then all these people saying that maybe they should shoot it down,' Hayes said. He and his wife spent hours that evening responding to posts, clarifying that 'this was a plane. This was a four-seater aircraft. This was our son.'With nearly 200 public and private airports across Utah, Hayes urged people to verify aircraft information before jumping to conclusions. 'Even just in the Salt Lake area, there's probably four or five airports in addition to Salt Lake International, where people are flying small planes in and out doing training,' he said. For those interested in identifying aircraft overhead, Hayes recommended public resources like Flightaware and ADS-B Exchange. 'These sites show you all publicly available flight data, what planes are flying around you,' he said. 'In a lot of ways, it's fun to look at, and it's fun to see. But it's also very informative for people as well.
SOCIAL MEDIA DRONE AIRCRAFT SAFETY MISIDENTIFICATION
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