Invoking the threat of countermeasures he did not specifically explain, the head of security at the Los Alamos National Laboratory has warned drone pilots they might lose their aircraft if they fly too close to the storied New Mexico nuclear weapons lab.
“The laboratory is authorized by federal law to track, intercept, disrupt, control, and even take down an unauthorized drone flying over lab property,” Michael Lansing, Los Alamos associate director for mission assurance, security, and emergency response, said in a video posted to YouTube last week.
How the lab might intercept, control, or take down a drone, Lansing did not say.
Lansing did say, though, that “if you fly your done over the Los Alamos National Laboratory, it is likely you will lose your aircraft.”
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch that runs Los Alamos, says it is authorized under the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act to protect itself against civilian operated drones.
“In cooperation with the FAA, NNSA has defined a threat as ‘the reasonable likelihood that an unmanned aircraft system or unmanned aircraft activity, if unabated, could inflict or otherwise cause physical harm to a person; inflict or otherwise cause damage to property or systems; interfere with the operational mission of a covered facility or asset; conduct unauthorized surveillance or reconnaissance; or result in unauthorized access to, or disclosure of, classified or otherwise lawfully protected information,’ according to an official NNSA statement appended to Lansing’s video.
In 2017, the Federal Aviation Administration banned drone flights from the surface to 400 feet above ground level at seven Department of Energy sites: the Hanford Site in Washington state; the Pantex Plant in Texas; Los Alamos; the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho; the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.; and the Y-12 National Security Site and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
NNSA contractors have raised a ruckus about drones before. In 2016, there were about 20 drone sightings reported at the Savannah River Site. The sensitive site stores fissile materials and radioactive waste, and houses chemical separations facilities.
In none of the dozen drone sightings of 2016 did Savannah River Site personnel determine who was flying the aircraft, or what their intentions were. In some cases, the reported drone sightings might not have involved drones at all.
