November 12, 2020 – Flyability joined forces with DroneUA to carry out a critical mission at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The goal was to check if nuclear waste had been left behind in one of the plant’s decommissioned reactors. Exactly one year ago, Flyability pilots conducted an important inspection at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, which occurred in April 1986. A video captured by the Elios 2 flying inside Reactor Five At the time of the disaster, Reactor No. 5 was still under construction and almost complete. Due to the urgency of evacuating the area, there were no records confirming whether the holding pools in Reactor Five had ever received the depleted uranium fuel rods they were designed for. Thirty-three years later, the Chernobyl decommissioning team needed to find out if any nuclear waste remained in Reactor Five. To do this, they enlisted Flyability pilots to conduct an inspection inside the reactor to answer two key questions: 1) Were any nuclear fuel rods present? 2) Had the main equipment used in the reactor ever been installed? The Elios 2 is widely used in nuclear power plants for inspections, helping to improve safety and significantly reduce downtime—meaning less time the plant is shut down for maintenance. However, this was the first time a Flyability drone was involved in a decommissioning effort at a nuclear facility. [Related read: What Is a Dosimeter?] “The Chernobyl mission was quite challenging,†said Charles Rey, Flyability's Training Manager and one of the mission leaders. “The wall we had to fly over was 70 meters high, so if we lost signal, we wouldn’t have been able to retrieve the drone. But everything went smoothly, and the team at Chernobyl was very pleased with the footage we collected.†The Chernobyl team had limited experience using drones for remote visual inspections. The Elios 2 proved to be a perfect tool because its protective cage allows it to enter tight indoor spaces and capture high-quality visual data for inspection purposes. Although the reactor structure is still intact, accessing the areas where nuclear waste might have been stored was nearly impossible due to the height of the entry points. Flyability pilots had to stand in the middle of the reactor, in a pit about 25 meters deep—a location that would have been completely inaccessible if the plant were still operational. Using the Elios 2, the team successfully flew into Reactor Five and gathered enough visual data to confirm that the pools were empty and that no nuclear waste was present anywhere inside. This discovery was groundbreaking, as there had never been any prior evidence confirming the emptiness of these pools. After the mission, the Chernobyl decommissioning team planned to include the visual data from the Elios 2 in a report submitted to international authorities about the status of the plant’s reactors. --- About Flyability Flyability is a Swiss company dedicated to developing solutions for inspecting and exploring indoor, hard-to-reach, and confined spaces. By enabling safe drone operations inside buildings, it helps industrial companies and professionals reduce downtime, lower inspection costs, and minimize risks to workers. With hundreds of customers across more than 50 countries in sectors like Power Generation, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Maritime, Infrastructure & Utilities, and Public Safety, Flyability has pioneered innovation in the commercial indoor drone industry. For more information, visit www.flyability.com or follow us on @fly_ability. Contact: info@flyability.com, +41 21 311 55 00 Anchor Drilling Rig,Horizontal Anchoring Drilling,Anchor Soil Nail Drilling Rig,Soil Nailing Drilling Machine Taian Longye Import And Export Trade Co.,ltd , https://www.drillingrigfactory.com