Skip to footer

Why the US will soon require registration for recreational drones

Pilots are reporting more than 100 'close encounters of the drone kind' per month, as the unmanned vehicles fly near commercial aircraft and into restricted airspace. The government hopes that registration will push drone owners to fly more safely.

|
Andrew Harnik/AP
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, left, announces the drone registration program, accompanied by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, center, and Airline Pilots Association President Tim Canoll.

On August 15, a small drone appeared alongside the left wing of a JetBlue flight as the pilot navigated the final approach into Los Angeles. It followed the plane for a few moments, then flew away. No one knew who was operating the drone, or what the outcome would be if it collided with the plane or got near the engines.

The white recreational drone wasn’t the first to interfere with a passenger airliner, but that didn’t make the encounter any less unsettling for those involved. 

There haven’t yet been any reports of collisions between drones and aircraft, but the number of close calls is rising steeply, from about 30 encounters per month in 2014 to more than 100 per month in 2015 so far, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. On Monday, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and other federal regulators announced the government’s response: all drone users, including hobbyists, will be required to register their drones in a central database.

The details of the registration process haven’t been worked out yet, but regulators hope that it will fulfill two goals once it’s implemented. First, the process of registration may help recreational drone fliers to take more seriously their responsibility to fly safely and to comply with existing drone rules. Second, the database may make it easier for officials to identify drones that are flouting the rules, and to hold their operators to account. 

The FAA already prohibits recreational drones from flying higher than 400 feet, within five miles of an airport, or inside restricted airspace. But when a rogue drone appears near the White House or off the wing of an aircraft, identifying its operator is difficult since he or she may be quite far away.

Tracking drones is more difficult still, since most commercially available models are so small they don’t show up on radar. Registered drones will carry an identification number that pilots or officials may be able to identify – though that’s a long shot, since a rogue drone will probably be moving quickly through the sky.

A joint task force of industry representatives and officials from the FAA and the Transportation Department have until November 20 to come up with rules for the new registration system. The government aims to put the system in place before the holidays, when most new drones are purchased.

“The signal we’re sending today is that when you’re in the national airspace, it’s a very serious matter,” Secretary Foxx said at a press conference.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Why the US will soon require registration for recreational drones
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/1019/Why-the-US-will-soon-require-registration-for-recreational-drones
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe