FAA recorded almost 700 drones and aircraft near collisions
By MoneyTimes
Aug 26, 2015 08:56 PM EDT
Regions
A Ghost drone by EHang is displayed at the 2015 International CES at the Las Vegas Convention Center on January 8, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ghost can be piloted by a smartphone without a remote control and only needs one click to take off, return and land. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs through January 9 and is expected to feature 3,600 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 150,000 attendees. (Photo : MoneyTimes)
FAA reported that there had been almost 700 close encounters between drones and planes.
Drones have no permissions to soar the sky of more than 400 feet off the ground or within the five miles of any airport, but on the day of August 15, drones messed with air traffic in the Unites States, dozens of them.
On that same day, a small white drone flew near the left wing of a JetBlue flight shortly before its landing in Los Angeles. Another drone that flew at 1,500 feet in the restricted place airspace of Washington D.C. alarmed the military who scrambled fighter jets in case of emergency. And in Louisville, KY., a collision has been avoided between a training aircraft and a silver and white drone flying near it.
Drones are formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Needless to say, a drone is a flying robot and can be remotely controlled or can fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems conjoining with GPS.
The issue here is that these drones in their current state are almost impossible to track since they can't be detected by radar and most are not equipped with devices that could transmit their location. It is also quite impossible to catch the perpetrators since they are flying their UAV's from such a distance.
NASA, together with some giant companies such Verizon and Amazon, is working on a plan to avoid encounters between aircrafts and drones. Most of the plans being considered involve "geofencing" in which drones will be hard-coded to prevent from flying in certain geographic areas. Owners will possibly be required as well to register their drones with the FAA.
Congress had asked the Federal Aviation Administration to come up with rules at the same time implementing it for the commercial use of drones by late 2015, but the agency missed a preliminary deadline and will certainly not have regulations ready until the year 2017.
For the meantime, a blanket ban on commercial drones remain in place, with some few exemption offered. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) promise that legislation will be introduced that requires manufacturers to prevent drones from flying above 500 feet or in protected airspace.