Tucson police chase 100 mph drone across city

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New details emerge about a drone that police were leading through Tucson on a high-speed chase before it disappeared.

TUCSON, Arizona – It started with a near-mistake.

On February 9, 2021, a Customs and Border Protection helicopter took off from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. It was dark and around 10:45 a.m.

Some kind of drone collapsed west of the base and almost hit the helicopter.

The CBP helicopter tried to follow him and the Tucson PD helicopter flew in to help. What happened next baffled drone experts.

12 News received police reports from that night showing that the flight crew of Tucson’s helicopter could not explain what they saw or how the drone behaved.

Tucson’s helicopter spotted a green light that they believed was attached to the underside of the drone. However, they could not see the drone even with infrared glasses. During the entire persecution, they could never tell what they were persecuting.

According to the report, the drone was “maneuvered across the city”. The pilots then lost it several times. According to the flight route for that night, the police helicopter started a westward spiral and followed the drone, and the drone sped away at 100 mph, even with a 40 mph headwind.

Typical commercial drones cannot travel 100 miles per hour even in the best of conditions. They are also limited in the distance they can fly from the remote control station. That distance is usually five miles or so, but this drone far exceeded that. And according to FAA regulations, drones are not allowed to fly over 400 feet.

Eventually the helicopter flew toward Mount Lemmon at an altitude of 14,000 feet, thousands of feet above the helicopter. The pilot wrote that the drone would orbit the helicopter at 100 miles per hour.

“[T]his drone didn’t seem off the shelf, “wrote the pilot.

Another member of the helicopter crew wrote that it appeared to be a “very sophisticated / specialized” drone that was “able to perform like no other … as I have seen”.

More than an hour later, the police helicopter ran out of fuel, but the drone was still flying. The helicopter had to return to the airport and lost the drone for good.

“This is not a normal drone,” said Vic Moss. Moss is a member of the Drone Service Providers Alliance, an advocacy group for the drone industry.

“What you could think of would be a hybrid system,” said Moss. “So it might be a propane-powered electric generator.”

Moss said it was technically possible to build a drone that could do what the Tucson drone allegedly did. But it wouldn’t be easy or cheap. There are such drones, he said, but they are usually limited to government programs.

“I would say it’s a drone that got away from someone,” Moss said. “But there’s a lot of weirdness in this report.”

If that drone had hit one of the helicopters or even an airplane, the results could have been disastrous, Moss said.

The Tucson Police and Customs and Border Protection filed their reports with the FBI. The FBI just said that they are still looking for tips.

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