The New York Times is reporting the arrest of three RC hobbyists that were flying an RC aircraft at a lake nearby a nuclear power plant. Authorities in France have been searching for suspects in what they call illegal flyovers of their nuclear power plants by drones over the past several months, however they doubt the people that they have arrested are the same people they are searching for. (Original source of story is here in French)

Law enforcement officials told Agence France-Presse that the three did not have criminal records; they were suspected of having illegally flown two drones near the plant. Vincent Bonnefoy, a prosecutor from the area in central France, told reporters that the three were hobbyists who had been trying to film a remote-control boat in a lake near the plant. He said that one of the three flew a drone in the same area in October and made a film of the flight.

According to the story, it would seem that part of the reason for the arrest is the fact that hearing the RC aircraft caused the security team to go into full panic mode by causing “organized provocation” and, “disrupting the surveillance chain and protection of these sites”. The hobbyists were apparently using their small multirotor to capture video of their RC boat. They had also done this a month before without incident.

In this author’s opinion incidents like this highlight the tension between hobbyists and those responsible for security, and also their lack of knowledge of RC aircraft and the technology in general. The key here is there is no behavior analysis to the perceived threat, just over-zealous reaction. Organized provocation can not be blamed on people doing innocent things, even by accident in a restricted area. In reality, an organized threat that wished to use a drone of some sort would not be able to be effectively stopped. But more to the point, a drone or RC aircraft would make a poor choice of weapon for terrorists, so the risk is minimized.