Aerial drone helps Okanagan RCMP in criminal and crash investigations

WEST KELOWNA – Remote controlled, aerial drones are gaining popularity as more and more uses are found for the little helicopters.

Now the RCMP in the Okanagan are using a drone in some criminal investigations, including serious highway accidents.

At a Highway 97 head-on collision Thursday in West Kelowna, a drone helped speed up the police investigation meaning the highway could reopen to traffic that much sooner.

It was used to process the crash scene instead of conventional laser transit measuring.

“If I was to survey this scene, it would take me probably two hours to do,” says RCMP crash analyst Sgt. Brian Nightingale. “This is going to take me 15 minutes.”

The drone is programmed to fly a specific grid pattern over the crash scene while taking dozens of photographs which can later be computer converted into a three-dimensional video.

“You’ve got everything you need for a crime scene that can be replicated in a scale drawing, and can be presented to forensic engineers or insurance companies, so they can run their analysis of the collision,” says Nightingale.

The measurements obtained are accurate to within a few centimetres.

Nightingale says the drone and his training time to use it cost about $20,000.