Yorkshire Belle: Passenger injured and medical emergency triggered by drone crashing into pleasure cruiser in Bridlington

A passenger was injured and another suffered a medical emergency after a drone crashed into the vintage pleasure cruiser Yorkshire Belle as she sailed out of Bridlington Harbour.

Some 50 passengers were crowded on the deck of the Belle on Saturday when the machine hit a mast stay and fell to the deck, hitting a man on the forehead.

The noise of the sudden incident apparently triggered an epileptic fit in a passenger nearby, who was later taken to hospital by ambulance.

He said: “We’d just set off from the harbour five or six minutes since, and were going along the North Promenade when all of a sudden this drone appeared out of nowhere.

"(It) crashed into one of our mast stays and fell down and hit a gentleman on the head and caused quite a serious gash on his head – there was blood pouring out.

"The drone crashed onto the deck and was still going or attempting to go, and there was a lady sat nearby and that caused her to have an epileptic fit.

"It could have been a lot more serious – it hit the gentleman on the forehead, had it gone a little further down it could have hit his eyes.”

The crew patched the injured passenger up and turned back to the harbour, where the drone operator was waiting to retrieve his machine.

The passenger, who was “remarkably calm”, insisted on staying on board when the birdwatching tour to Bempton Cliffs got underway again. However Mr Richardson said the female passenger was taken to hospital, after being taken to shore with the assistance of the coastguard team, as she continued having fits.

Mr Richardson said he thought radar interference from the signals sent out by the vessel could have caused the incident and the operator had insisted it was a malfunction.

He said: “I don’t think he was taking picture of us, it was the sailing coble festival. We were sailing past at the time.”

He said police have reported the incident to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

In a Facebook post, Yorkshire Belle asked operators to maintain a minimum distance of 50 metres and never fly directly towards the boat.

Last Thursday West Midlands Fire Service urged recreational drone users not to fly above their crews or emergency incidents as they were interfering with efforts to tackle wildfires.

The BBC reported that in one recent incident, firefighters were being directed to a hotspot by one of their own pilots using a drone as a marker, but mistakenly gathered under a drone operated by a member of the public instead.

According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), there are approximately 720,000 active registered drone flyers and operators.

One commentator on social media described what happened as a “very rare” and “unfortunate” incident. Humberside Police have been approached for comment.

Yorkshire Belle, which was built in 1947, is the last surviving traditional pleasure boat of her kind on the Yorkshire coast, offering scenic summer trips toward Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs.