Cheap drones exposed Vietnam's airport vulnerability during tourism boom

Cheap drones exposed Vietnam's airport vulnerability during tourism boom — type0 | type0

A 25-year-old Chinese tourist was standing near East Sea Park on Vo Nguyen Giap Street in Da Nang on March 14 when a patrol team caught him flying a DJI Mavic 3 Pro without a permit, VnExpress reported. He was about six kilometers from Da Nang International Airport. The drone was seized. Its stored data showed no images or video — he had not even gotten the shot.

It was the latest incident in a wave of illegal drone flights that, over one week during the Lunar New Year holiday in February, disrupted more than 83 flights at one of Vietnam busiest coastal airports. Six separate incursions near the runways forced aircraft into holding patterns, forced runway changes, and diverted some planes as far as Phu Bai, roughly 80 kilometers away in Hue province. Seven people were identified as having flown drones illegally during that period. Some of the flights were linked to real estate advertising.

The disruptions were severe enough to pull in the Ministry of Construction, which issued directives to the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Public Security, and local authorities demanding stronger surveillance and enforcement near airports nationwide. Da Nang military command has since deployed drone detection and suppression equipment around the airport perimeter, set up dedicated patrol teams across wards and communes, and equipped forces with anti-drone jamming guns. Air defense units from Military Region 5 have been placed on standby. Local police and border guards are actively tracking and confiscating unauthorized drones.

The enforcement mechanism is serious. Under Vietnamese regulations, flying a drone without a permit in a restricted zone carries a fine of VND30-40 million, roughly $1,100 to $1,500. Vietnam requires all foreign drone operators to obtain authorization from the defense ministry, a process that can take up to three weeks and requires a local Vietnamese guarantor.

This is not a story about sophisticated adversaries. It is a story about tourists with consumer drones and a city that sits in the middle of its own airport.

Da Nang international airport is unusual: it sits within the city, not on its periphery. Its approach corridors stretch over densely packed neighborhoods and tourist-heavy beaches — Vo Nguyen Giap Street, the coastal road where the March 14 incident occurred, is exactly the kind of place a tourist with a drone would go to capture a dramatic shot. The entire coastline is essentially a no-fly zone. Under a prime ministerial decision, the restricted airspace covers a 5-kilometer radius from the airport boundary and extends approximately 15 kilometers along the runway approach paths. Drones have been spotted at altitudes between 1,000 and 3,800 feet, directly overlapping with aircraft approach paths. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam reported that from September 2025 to February 2026, multiple incursions occurred within 3 to 12 nautical miles of the airport.

A German tourist was caught flying a drone at the same intersection on February 26. A Vietnamese man was fined VND2.5 million, about $95, and had his drone confiscated on March 3 for flying without a permit near Lien Chieu Port. The majority of violations involved domestic and international tourists using drones to film videos and take photographs, some spontaneously, without understanding the law. A police official from Da Nang Technical and Offline Operations Department told local media that one difficulty is that many people believe having a flight permit is sufficient, without realizing they also need to notify local authorities before takeoff or operate only within the coordinates and altitude specified in the permit.

Da Nang police department has described its surveillance system as capable of detecting UAVs from the moment it powers up, quickly identifying device type, altitude, speed, flight direction, and flight path, and critically pinpointing the operator location using a scanning system. Once a UAV is identified, mobile forces are deployed to the scene. The challenge, an officer said, is that even when operators are located several kilometers away, the reconnaissance team has to find the quickest route through heavy traffic to reach them.

For travelers, the message is arriving late and incompletely. Vietnam drone rules are not obscure — they are on the books — but the friction required to comply is high enough that most tourist drone flights happen unchecked. The enforcement response has been muscular: military technology, patrol teams, anti-drone jamming guns, air defense on standby. The deterrent may be working. The question is whether it needed to escalate this far before the message reached the people standing on Vo Nguyen Giap Street with a Mavic 3 Pro, 6 kilometers from the runway, trying to get a nice photo.