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FAA Proposes $1.9 Million Fine For Unauthorized Drone Use
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has been under pressure to regulate the nascent drone industry. It's obvious they lack a clear idea of how to proceed — but they're trying. Today they announced a proposal to fine SkyPan International a whopping $1.9 million for allegedly conducting 65 unauthorized commercial drone flights over Chicago and New York City. The flights occurred over a period of almost three years, for the purpose of aerial photography. 43 of the flights impinged upon highly restricted airspace, and the FAA says none of them were "without risk." They bluntly allege that SkyPan "operated the aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger lives or property." SkyPan now has 30 days to respond.
Clear policies need to be established, particularly for those who think they can fly their drones over private property at their whim.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Yeah, deliberately and knowingly entering reserved airspace dozens of times probably should earn someone a hefty fine, or rather should really earn prison time. Doodling around in the flights paths of commercial airliners constitutes a ridiculous and needless risk if the FAA complaint is accurate. People hate the idea of the FAA controlling drones, but the FAA will *need* power over drones if their pilots keep acting like reckless fuckers.
Maybe Congress could get off their ass and give the FAA a specific, bounded mandate for controlling and allowing drone flights so airspace regulations doesn't descent into a quagmire of confused case law and bureaucratic over-reach like the ATF handling of firearms has become. There's options, but again if drone pilots don't practice some fucking sense the realistic options for minimal regulation will just keep diminishing.
What the hell is that all about? I rather like the idea of being able to board an aircraft and not have any problems because some yokel with too much money decides it's fun to fly a piece of plastic into the engine of my plane. Please FAA - keep on fining!
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Surely the purpose of a fine, or any other punishment, is to discourage similar behavior in future. I did a quick search on SkyPan and it looks like they have already obtained the proper authorization from the FAA (Drone startup issued biggest fine ever for flying without permission). So why hit them so hard if they have already adjusted their behavior? It's probably to set an example, but it seems very excessive for a legitimate company that appears to be adhering to the regulations already ...
Life imprisonment for killing another person, fines for destroying public right a ways, hell there are even laws against trespassing on anothers property. Yeah, government really sucks.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
It's ridiculous. You even hear of people getting lengthy prison sentences just for driving a car! Do we need these kind of government regulations??
True, they happened to be driving their car at great speed through a crowd of pedestrians on the side walk, but still. As long as we can phrase criminally reckless behaviour as innocent sounding activities, the government should keep their nose out of it!
It did not matter the Air Traffic Control violated 1 km horizontal separation and 1000 feet vertical separation without a mid air collision. If the rule was violated the incident report must be filed. All rule violations must be filed. Accidents are too infrequent to infer statistically significant conclusions.
Among the federal agencies FAA has a very good track record of amending the rules and regulations to help improve safety. It does not simply issue fines for incident violations. When some rule violation becomes too frequent it analyses the situation and comes up with a solution too.
For example, when the pilots go through the check lists, if it gets interrupted, the rule is to start from the top all over again. Pilots should NOT try to remember what was done and continue from the middle. But this rule was getting violated too often. They analyzed and found that the check lists were getting too long and it was quite tedious to start from the top. They broke the check list into sections, and amended the rule "Start from the top of section. Each section should start in its own page. No section should have more than so many checks". This is how we achieved the safety in air travel. It might hurt the free market fanatics to accept it, but FAA is one federal agency that is doing its job right.
May be a little too slow to respond, and may be it has some conflict of goals in its charter, "to promote safety" as well as "to promote air travel". It is high time we remove the requirement for it to promote air travel and make safety its single goal.
In fact its procedures draw universal acclaim and some medical researchers are arguing for check lists for surgeons for their procedures.
If FAA says this drone operator flew their machines with reckless disregard for safety, they did. They should pay the fine.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
SkyPan operated the 43 flights in the New York Class B airspace without receiving an air traffic control clearance to access it, the FAA alleges. Additionally, the agency alleges the aircraft was not equipped with a two-way radio, transponder, and altitude-reporting equipment. The FAA further alleges that on all 65 flights, the aircraft lacked an airworthiness certificate and effective registration, and SkyPan did not have a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization for the operations. SkyPan operated the aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger lives or property, the FAA alleges.
If you have flown to New York and Chicago between March 21, 2012, and Dec. 15, 2014 you might have been endangered by this company. It operated drones which were not airworthy, it operated drones without the transponder to alert the ATC about its altitude, location and speed. These machines are too small to show up in radar. Without a transponder they are nearly invisible to radar.
New York is where both engines of USAir flight were hit by soft bodied geese weighing less than 20 pounds each and forced the plane to crash land in the Hudson river. The drones have hard metal parts and hard plastic. They would do far more damage to the plane.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Maybe Drone manufacturers need to step up to help understand the regulations better. Do you think these regulations are clearly defined and easily acceptable? Vote here -> http://www.yanoit.com/#/Questi...
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It's not the manufacturers, it's the users. Those of us who fly rockets - and all the traditional RC aircraft pilots - know the regs and we stick to them pretty damned closely because it's safety. The manufacturers are selling a product, and while it needs to be airworthy and safe to operate, they have no control over where it's operated.
I can only fly certain impulse rockets near my house because of air traffic restrictions. That doesn't mean manufacturers should make bigger engines - it just means if I want to fly them I have to take them somewhere where they will be safe and legal (like Black Rock).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Air safety is achieved by rigorous enforcement of rules. One can not show the lack of adverse consequences for a violated rule as defense for violating the rule. At the time the rule violation happened, the violator did not know it would have no adverse consequences.
As an engineer, I like this kind of thinking because it is fair and predictable--a person who breaks a rule gets the same punishment regardless of whether it causes harm, because the rule is deigned to prevent the *possibility* of harm.
As a human being, I know our society is too emotional to do that in the real world. We punish drunk driving differently if it causes a death, for example, and let the *luck* of whether someone dies greatly determine the outcome.
Go try rocketry as a hobby. Then come back and bitch.
We worked it out, though it took time - and we had to deal with BOTH the FAA and BATFE. Be an adult and work with the FAA to keep both drones and air traffic safe. Be lucky you don't have to sue the BATFE.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You think a lot, but you know nothing.
And no one is better at phrasing reckless behavior as innocent-sounding activities than drone operators.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Keep your toy away from my property and away from planes. Quit trying to cast your fucking hobby as some sort of virtuous enterprise.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
mapbox has a really useful map https://www.mapbox.com/drone/n.... FAA have a really simple description https://www.faa.gov/regulation...
It shows the exclusion zones around the airports. Defined as Class B airspace.
The rules are fairly simple. Ground or above is controlled airspace. ATC must know and must be able to know where your aircraft is. You could possibly argue that below the treeline/building line should be considered safe, but the rules are clear.
Likely the company repeatedly flew in the area north of central park which is restricted. In particular this company has been doing it for a while with both UAV and manned aircraft, and should have known better. For this type of fine, likely they had been warned too.
The company operated the UAVs in class B airspace over New York City. It's not "away from an airport" but is less than 5 miles from LaGuardia Airport, and is also the densest metropolitan area in the country. One of the issues was a series of flights over 432 Park Ave, which is the second-tallest building in NYC at nearly 1400 feet. The company took their 360* VR images up to 1400 feet, as well some separate aerial shots from a helicopter that were legal.
It's not illegal to fly over NYC. But if you plan to fly, you must follow FAA rules regarding transponders and such, and file flight plans with the ATC. Keep in mind that Manhattan is almost in the middle of 3 airports and its airspace is heavily trafficked.
The way police "fight" drunk driving is by creating very heavy punishment, but enforce it lackadaisically. The probability of getting caught is low, but if you do get caught the punishment is severe. The ExpectedCost = Sum over the driving population (probability of getting caught * severity of punishment). This leads to widespread rule violation, gaming the system, using apps to minimize getting caught etc. Add to it the conflict of interest due to the fines being used as revenue source for the municipality.
FAA approach would be: Something along the lines of "all drivers who drove drunk must file an incident report voluntarily". You will be surprised how much FAA relies on voluntary disclosure from all the parties, airlines, pilots, ATC, maintenance logs etc. It would collect the reported incident data and try to get to the root of the problem. It would not set up a single blood alcohol limit for all roads and all locations. It would eventually classify roads as Class A, Class B etc with different blood alcohol levels. Will encourage a combination of public transport or shared transportation of drunk passengers through Class A and Class B thoroughfares to park-and-ride lots accessible by Class C and Class D thoroughfares. The drunks would be allowed to reach their homes on their own. They really don't want to kill you or damage their cars or die in accidents. They just want to go home. It is as much in their interest to avoid an accident as it is yours. Will allow drunk drivers to install "I'm driving drunk" warning lights on their cars to alert others and voluntarily install speed limiting devices.
Of course FAA will not get any financial incentive in punishing the drunk drivers. It would beg for handouts from the government for its operating budget. The free market fanatics would attack it continuously and hamper it in every possible way.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
First off, let me say that I am not against creating laws that make sense but things are going way overboard. There are just way too many laws in this country and at this rate our rights are being signed away more and more every day. There is already laws surrounding restricted air space which drones could easily fall within, or, at the very least trespassing. This is just yet another example of government paranoia infringing on peoples rights. Under pressure...? By whom, themselves? I don't see Americans protesting for million dollar fines and jail time. Not to mention, this is an innocent infraction, equivalent to flying hobby RC toys. This is rubbish.
Don't worry: your property will only be invaded by low-flying delivery drones, not toys. Take joy in the fact that they all carry transponders and have certificates, while you watch and listen to them buzzing over your patio like a swarm of locusts.
Here's the problem: If you allow the FAA to get away with this crap, then you have lost the war and have given up power to yet another byzantine bureaucracy. This five-mile rule is ridiculous for several reasons: 1) Airports generally don't have 360-degree approach patterns (heliports notwithstanding and even they have approach and departure rules), 2) No airport pattern is lower than 800 feet except on final and departure legs which are clearly defined and those don't need 5 miles, 3) Where did they come up with that figure for the fine and who gets the money?
Except that apparently no one has been harmed, no property has been damaged, there may have been trespassing but even that is a bit of a grey area as far as the law is concerned (83 ft to 500 ft has no real defined law). I'm all for punishing people for injuring others or damaging their property but the fascination of some people in this country with punishing people before they do anything to harm another for something that might happen is idiotic.
That is an impressively paranoid screed.
You really should stay in the basement, but keep up on the Vitamin D pills, you'll need them.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I've got a high power pressure washer ready. No need for bullets, and the effect will be the same.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I about doubled over laughing after reading thi......oh, wait, you were serious?
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
I suspect that taking down a drone that flies through FAA-defined navigable airspace (in your backyard) will be a felony. In fact, it might be treated the same as shooting down an aircraft.
that if a government bans civil usage of drones, the country inevitably and hopelessly falls behind in development of the technology. This is already happening. Chinese civil drones produced by the DJI company are much better technologically than anything US or European.
The US and Canada plans to increase no-fly areas around airport to 9 or even 20 miles for civil UAVs. It means basically banning civil drones. While there was not a single serious accident yet involving a civil drone. In the whole world, ever.
At the same time military drones, which should be banned in my opinion, always get green light, even though thousands innocent people were killed as a collateral damage.
I doubt it is serious, it is just the Liberal version of the conservative troll. He attributes incorrect policies to a political movement, then demonizes them for it.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
commercial
I think it's high time to define UAVs and the subsequent subsets. I've typed it out once before and had an addition made so there's that. I'm not even a hobbyist. I just don't want you guys getting raped for a hobby that's being usurped by idiots.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
As far as I know not a single test was ever done of a collision between a quadcopter and a manned aircraft.
All we need is a testing facility and frangible design of civil UAVs. After a collision with the speed of more than 150 - 200 km/h UAV should just fall apart as if made from sand. Problem solved.
http://www.amazon.com/Guillow-...
Large enough to carry a camera and autonomous control guidance system.
Of course someone would hack the app and circumvent the safeguards. And when they get caught they can be sent to jail. Given a legal and reasonable way to do something, most of the people will follow the law.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
No, drones that didn't qualify as model aircraft (non line of sight or for commercial purposes) were completely forbidden. The current regulation sets up a system by which you can have commercial drones if they have a special experimental airworthiness certficate, transponder, flight plan, the special permission of the FAA, and they're flown by a licensed pilot.
you can fly in any airspace other then no fly under 500 feet. as there is no risk of hitting any aircraft at that height, these laws have been around for a long time and i hope this company challenges them on there bs.
line of site is a shaky rule at best you can just have spotters an still be ok as far as line of site rule works.
So the FAA misses their deadline for establishing policies for drone use.....and there just like.... "Yeah....we're gonna fine you guys for flying drones over NYC for the last 3 years" They just ran out of cubans.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?