UK Police Drone Crash Sends Child to the Hospital

According to multiple sources, a police officer in Kent was operating a DJI Matrice 30T drone when it struck a power line and crashed into a child, causing them to be taken to a London hospital for severe injuries to their hand.

Shortly after 4 PM on August 2nd, police in the county of Kent in the United Kingdom deployed a drone to respond quickly to an alleged assault in Sheerness. During the mission, the drone reportedly hit an overhead cable, then dropped and struck a child.

The child was reportedly injured to the extent that they needed to be sent to a London hospital for treatment.

What’s Happened Since the Crash?

According to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), they have opened an independent investigation into the incident and confirmed that a misconduct notice has been served on a special inspector who was involved in the flight.

IOPC investigators stress that –

A notice does not automatically mean disciplinary action will follow, but it does mean the officer’s conduct is formally under scrutiny.

The IOPC has also stated that they believe this is the first time an investigation has involved a member of the public being injured by a police drone in the UK.

This was an Enterprise Drone, Not a Toy Quadcopter.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) told reporters the aircraft involved was a DJI Matrice 30T, a high-end enterprise platform that weighs around 4 kg (~9 Lbs) and carries wide, zoom and thermal cameras onboard.

If you care to read a bit more about why the Matrice 30T is the go-to for search-and-rescue, check out the article we’ve got posted here.

Because its weight is significantly more than that of most professional/consumer drones, or “prosumer” drones, a falling M30T packs way more kinetic energy than a consumer DJI Mini 4 Pro (<249g), for example. A strike to the hand is serious enough; a hit to the head or neck could have been far worse.

That reality is exactly why regulators and manufacturers treat operations near people as a higher-risk category – and why we have spent so much time on pieces like our first-responder drone flights over people article, warning that “over people” is not just a paperwork box to tick.

Kent Police’s Choppy History

The incident might have stayed buried in internal paperwork if not for sustained Freedom of Information (FOI) work.

Alongside the IOPC probe, the AAIB is running a safety investigation into how a modern enterprise drone ended up colliding with an overhead line and falling onto a member of the public. Their findings are expected to focus on pre-flight risk assessment, obstacle awareness, and procedures for low-level flight in built-up areas.

This is not actually the first time DroneXL has written about the Kent Police Department. Back in 2023, they had an incident that resulted in the crash of a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise.

DroneXL’s Take

This incident should serve as a wake-up call for police departments worldwide that are adding Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into their toolset. These unmanned aircraft are still aircraft, and they can cause serious injury to people.

There are strict rules and regulations in place for drone operators, especially about operations conducted over people. There seems to have been a major gap in their risk assessment of the operation prior to launch, which could have been the direct cause of the crash. If they were not aware of the location of the overhead lines beforehand, they failed to complete their due diligence.

The outcome of the IOPC and AAIB investigations will probably shape how the UK rewrites its regulations regarding unmanned flights over people. For now, Kent Police, the IOPC, and AAIB all say their work is ongoing. Whatever they conclude, I believe this crash will be cited for years to come as a case study of what can happen when a public-safety tool drops into the community it is meant to protect.