Chinese Lanterns

More and more these days we are seeing these pesky chinese lanterns.  They are launched at weddings, parties, in fact any time when someone has got them without any particular reason.

I think they should be banned on a number of grounds, and this is just from personal knowledge - there may be other reasons that I haven't thought of.

Firstly, it seems that they never burn out completely, so even those with 'biodegradable' frames rather than metal wires will still come to earth in some form.  The metal frames are litter that is dangerous to animals and children that come across them, but even the new biodegradable frames are potentially hazardous and can remain around for a long time.

Secondly, the fire risk.  I have seen a chinese lantern, still burining, land on the roof of a nearby house.  This was likely to be the result of a downdraft which exceeded the lantern's ability to rise.  Fortunately it sat on the tiles and burned out without causing any damage- how different that could have been if it had landed on say a plastic gutter, thatched roof, or perhaps a dry crop in a farmer's field?  There could have been massive and expensive fire damage.

Then of course we have the calls to the emergency services after people are convinced they have seen distress flares, aircraft going down in flames or in some cases, they are convinced these are aliens flying over.

Finally for now, as a pilot I have never had the misfortune to encounter one whilst airborne, but there are clearly two concerns.  Firstly there is the possible damage, though unlikely, if one or more lanterns are ingested by an aircraft engine - the metal framed ones will be worse here.  Secondly, the potential distraction caused to the crew if one suddenly comes into their field of view and they have to quickly identify it.  Here I speak from experience of flying around bonfire night, with around 500 litres of high octane fuel in tanks either side of me, and questioning how high fireworks can get!  The simple answer is that I climbed another 1,000 feet just to be sure but these lanterns can get very high depending on the weather conditions.  I wouldn't want to experience that!