On Monday December 21, 2015, Mr. Barry Valentine, Senior Advisor of The Wicks Group, and former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Acting Administrator, was featured as an expert on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street panel segment on the development of registration rules for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
Commonly referred to as “drones,” a recent FAA report from the Office of Aviation Policy and Plans estimates that the presence of UAS in the United States national airspace system (NAS) will continue to grow dramatically as the use of UAS expands to civil and commercial markets. Accompanying this rapid growth is the increased risk of accidents and unsafe operations. In 2015 alone, the FAA received 1,133 unmanned aircraft reports, including two high-profile incidents, one where an unmanned aircraft operator breached a prohibited flight zone and crashed his unmanned aircraft on the White House grounds, and another where an unmanned aircraft was flown into a U.S. Open tennis match at Louis Armstrong Stadium, located less than five miles from LaGuardia Airport, and crashed in an empty section of the stands. Many of these aircraft are operated by inexperienced owners with little or no prior aviation experience, adding to the possibility of a major incident.
The proposed rules set forth by the FAA would require owners to register their UAS identification numbers in a database monitored and surveilled by the FAA, allowing investigators to track incidents involving UAS across the NAS. “If there was an accident, one would at least be able to identify the people involved with the drone that may have caused the incident,” said Mr. Valentine during the interview, highlighting the importance of the proposed rule.
With these new regulations, the FAA will begin policing and monitoring UAS usage across the country. When asked whether it was appropriate for the FAA to be involved in this capacity, Mr. Valentine described the proposed rule and their implementation as an “educational process,” the purpose of which is to make people aware of the necessity of these regulations and to encourage adherence, reducing the possibility of an accident. “Any move forward that would reduce that possibility,” concluded Mr, Valentine, “is worth pursuing.”
The complete video of the interview can be found online via CNBC. For more information on the proposed regulations for the registration and monitoring of unmanned aircraft systems, contact Glenn P. Wicks, Managing Director, at gpwicks@wicks-group.com or 202-457-7790.