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Colorado Lawmakers Want To Make It a Felony To Fly a Drone Over a Wildfire (thedrive.com)
Several Colorado lawmakers are trying to urge Congress to pass a bill that would make flying unmanned aerial vehicles over wildfires a felony, citing safety concerns. The Drive reports: On Wednesday, Senators Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), and Representative Scott Tipton (R-Colorado) introduced the Securing Airspace For Emergency Responders Act, which would fine people for flying UAVs over wildfires without authorization, and potentially send them to jail for a year. "When an unauthorized drone flies over a wildfire, it poses a huge threat to aircraft working to suppress the fire and forces them to ground," said Tipton in a statement. Steve Hall, a spokesman for Colorado's office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, staunchly echoed that sentiment, claiming that firefighters face enough of a challenge navigating smoky and turbulent conditions while piloting firefighting aircraft, that adding rogue drones to the mix would only increase danger and hamper their efforts. On top of that, Hall explained that once an unauthorized drone is observed during a wildfire, firefighters ground their planes. The Denver Post first reported the news (paywalled).
>"misdemeanour for endangering peoples lives? I think not. If anything what they are proposing sounds too light."
That is super-dramatic. Let's think about typical felonies for a moment:
Murder
Rape
Kidnapping
Robbery
Arson
Extortion
Blackmail
Manslaughter
Grand larceny
These are ACTUAL harm to people's lives.... mostly intentional violent crimes. Does flying a drone around and having it drift too close to a fire really seem to fit? By your logic- well, you are "endangering people's lives" by speeding, following too closely, jaywalking, drinking alcohol in public, running at a pool, or playing hockey, so those should be felonies? We probably already have too many things mis-categorized as felonies (like simple copyright infringement, some drug possession).
Now, if you flew a drone in a way that ACTUALLY caused harm to someone, perhaps THAT would justify a felony. We don't want to continue a march into a police state.
When it causes aircraft trying to fight a fire to crash yes. Or when those same aircraft have to waive off of drop runs because of a drone, letting a fire break free of lines, possibly entrapping fire crews or citizens on the ground?
A potential Felony is proper. I would hope they would start off with a heavy fine but repeat violations or causing one of the above results should pull the felony charge and year penalty.
Drones near fires has become a serious problem and needs to be stomped hard and fast before people do start dying.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Small threat? When a drone is seen near an active fire, all aircraft are grounded until it is removed from the scene. The removal of those aircraft can allow a fire to escape fire lines, to surround and entrap ground crews and many more issues. Not just increasing risk to humans but also substantially increasing the cost of fighting a fire.
Note also that the wording is up to a year. That gives them the option of going first with a misdemeanor and fine for most cases, but should a drone cause the crash of a firefighting aircraft or loss of life due to aircraft not being able to drop retardant at a critical point then they have the option of going for the felony charge. They can also go that way for repeat offenses.
Drones flying near fires is a serious problem and it needs to be stomped hard to get people to wake up and not interfere just to get some cool video for Facebook.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
These are ACTUAL harm to people's lives.... mostly intentional violent crimes. Does flying a drone around and having it drift too close to a fire really seem to fit?
Yes it does. They have caused aircraft fighting the fire to crash or to divert from their missions (putting out fires) which can cost lives of firefighters and civilians as well as property. This isn't hypothetical. It's literally no different than forcing a fire engine in your town to divert therefore slowing response times. People die when that happens. If you have a legitimate need to fly a drone over a fire then coordinate that activity with the people fighting the fire and there is no problem. Otherwise you're just some jackass trying to amuse yourself and causing problems for others. Furthermore I don't think you appreciate how fast these fires can move. If you are close enough to fly most drones over the fire then you are in legitimate physical danger and might endanger others who have to rescue you from your stupidity.
By your logic- well, you are "endangering people's lives" by speeding, following too closely, jaywalking, drinking alcohol in public, running at a pool, or playing hockey, so those should be felonies?
In some cases those things are actually felonies. Don't believe me? Go ahead and drive a car through a school zone at 100 miles per hour while drinking in public and see if that doesn't land you some time behind bars.
Now, if you flew a drone in a way that ACTUALLY caused harm to someone, perhaps THAT would justify a felony.
By your logic attempted murder isn't a crime because no one was actually harmed.
Has there been a single case of that occurring? Or just reports of pilots seeing drones? Drones don't typically fly high enough to interfere with aircraft, though low flying firefighting equipment is probably an exception. Damage from birds is orders of magnitude more likely than from a drone, and occurs on a regular basis...over 70,000 incidents between 2010 and 2016 according to FAA reports. Do they stop flying in the area when they see birds? No, and they shouldn't. This is a simple overreaction to something that's a non-issue, and they have much more important things to legislate.
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Per the articles cited, said drones were simply observed and were not interfering with operations, however there was a risk that they could and as such the applicable firefighting agencies ended operations per their policy due to violation of a Temporary Flight Restriction not being honored. As such, it remains perceived harm, not actual - unless the overreaction where all operations should cease because a bird-sized and weighted object is in the vicinity.
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