Openreach Airborne Drone Reconnects Rural Hamlet After Landslide UPDATE

A serious landslide, which cut-off the rural hamlet of Kinloch Hourn in the West Highlands (Scotland) from broadband and phone services, has been reconnected after Openreach (BT) used one of their airborne drones to fly a new cable over the safety exclusion zone, around the landslide, and to the base of the Quoich Dam.

Apparently the landslide itself was triggered after a cave, which sat roughly 2,500ft up the side of a mountain, collapsed following a couple of local tremors. The landslide also appears to have dislodged two 1000 tonne+ boulders, which are bigger than a large detached bungalow (sadly the pictures provided were too grainy to include). Some 9,000 tons of soil and rock also crashed onto the road below, completely destroying it.

Curiously the event occurred on 12th November, although Openreach notes that a “single phone fault was only reported this week.” We suspect this might be because most mobile operators have either zero or very weak signal coverage in the area, so there may have been no easy way to report it. Nevertheless Openreach dispatched a team and soon ran into problems with the exclusion zone, which is a no-go area because of the threat to life.

Luckily the team were able to harness drones (we’ve seen these used before – here and here – in earlier pilots (no pun intended)) to fly a new cable over the exclusion zone, which was then connected to the existing network. Unfortunately the team still had to walk 3 miles in torrential rain and hail to the nearest radio sub-station to make sure all 6 lines had a dial tone.

Fraser MacDougall, Openreach’s Ops Manager (Highlands and Islands), said:

“As there is no mobile reception at Kinloch Hourn, the radio link is the main means of communication and summoning help in emergencies. It was important to get it restored so that residents have access to services while clean up and stabilisation works are completed. It initially looked impossible due to the exclusion zone and road closure, but then we hit on the idea of using the drone.”

The Highland Council is said to have estimated that it will take “several weeks to stabilise the hillside” against further landslips and begin clearance work on the road, which connects Loch Garry to Kinloch Hourn. At present Openreach has five approved drone teams in the UK, which might not sound like much but they are quite niche.

The operator typically makes use of the DJI Mavic Pro (costs around £800-£1000) drone. The flyer weighs 750g and has a flight time of 27 minutes per battery, with a max payload of 1.5lbs, plus collision avoidance sensors to help dodge obstacles.. and sometimes engineers. So far none of them have gone off on a mission to kill John Conner 🙂 .

UPDATE 2nd Dec 2018

Thanks to one of our readers (see comments) for finding this video of the landslide.