drone

The Dutch Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate plans to use "sniffer drones" to check ships' emissions as they approach the port of Rotterdam, to make sure they adhere to new environmental regulations, project leader Marco Buitelaar said to NU.nl.

There are still jihadists who are making plans to commit an attack in the Netherlands, the national coordinator for counter terrorism and security NCTV said in its latest threat assessment. The chance of an attack in the Netherlands remains real, and the threat level is therefore still at 4 on a scale of 5, NOS reports.

Three hundred drones lit up the Amsterdam sky above the IJ with a light show on Saturday night. The drones flew in different formations, inspired by the flight patterns of starlings, AT5 reports.

The show premiered in Miami last year. A special exception was made to have the show in Amsterdam on Saturday, because drones are actually forbidden in the airspace around Schiphol airport. 

The show was scheduled to take place on Friday, but had to be postponed due to bad weather. 

ProRail is going to use drones and 3D scans to map out trees along the Dutch railway. In this way the rail company wants to identify trees that are at risk of falling over or losing branches before they cause delays on the tracks, NOS reports.

Emergency services found a body in recreational lake Hilgelo near Winterswijk while searching for a missing swimmer on Tuesday. The victim has not yet been identified, NU.nl reports.

The missing swimmer is an asylum seeker living in the asylum center in Winterswijk. He disappeared under water after jumping from a raft on Monday. The man was at the water with other asylum seekers from the center.

After more than a year, the Dutch police decided to stop using birds of prey to intercept drones. It turned out that there isn't much demand for drone-intercepting eagles, and training the birds is more expensive and complicated than expected, NOS reports.

Drones will be used to transport medicine from the Dutch mainland to the Wadden island of Schiermonnikoog in a new experiment by UMCG Ambulance Care and ANWB Medical Air Assistance, NU.nl reports.

The test involves three drones making a total of 30 flights from an unspecified location in Friesland to the helicopter port on the island. The municipality of Schiermonnikoog agreed to the test, under the condition that this will only involve medical flights. The island wants to deter commercial flights, because they disturb the peace.

A 35-year-old man from Haarlem was arrested by the Koninklijke Marechaussee for flying a drone at Schiphol Airport. Flying drones near the airport is forbidden, as it can put air traffic in danger, ANP reports.

With the increasing use of drones, the rules of where they can and cannot be used also increased. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment published a map showing the areas where drone flying is banned.

A 21-year-old Ukrainian man was fined 500 euros on Monday for flying a drone in Schiphol's departure hall, the police announced in a statement.

The young man wanted to make a film of his family and friends just before his departure, according to the police. He did not realize that it is illegal in the Netherlands to fly a drone in controlled airspace. Doing so could put air traffic in serious danger.

A 19-year-old Amsterdam resident was arrested near Schiphol on Saturday afternoon for flying a drone in the vicinity of the airport, the police said in a statement.

A spectacular Dutch innovation was showed off at the cyber summit in The Hague on Thursday. A drone that is controlled by thought.