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Drone and plane were switched in the previous (good!) title edit.
Volker Siegel
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Can a drone hitting a plane be mistaken for a birdstrike?

Could a bird-sized consumer drone be digested by a jet engine, and not be recognized as a drone, mistaking it as a bird strike?

I'm thinking of the situation during the flight - like an engine making a short unusual noise, but works ok; Not sure that can even happen eating a small bird?

As was pointed out, the debris of the object will look different in obvious ways when checking the engine after flight

I would assume a major factor is how the engine handles the drone, in terms of defects or runing anomalies.
The battery comes to mind, hitting a turbine blade might be a problem - depending on the battery size.
There are certainly drones with very small batteries, that I assume will do no obvious harm, and certainly ones with batteries big enough to do harm for sure.

Volker Siegel
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