National Transportation Safety Board Rules Drones Are Aircraft, Subject to Federal Aviation Administration Rules: Fine Upheld Against Man For Recklessly Operating a Drone

The Wall Street Journal
By Jack Nicas
Updated Nov. 18, 2014 1:36 p.m. ET


The National Transportation Safety Board has ruled that drones are aircraft and subject to existing aviation laws, affirming the Federal Aviation Administration’s regulatory power over the fast-emerging industry, amid challenges to the agency’s authority.

The four NTSB board members on Tuesday overturned an earlier ruling that had dismissed a $10,000 FAA fine against an Austrian drone pilot, Raphael Pirker, for allegedly operating a drone recklessly to film the University of Virginia in 2011.

Mr. Pirker is a well-known pilot in the industry and has traveled the world shooting aerial footage with his devices. The NTSB hears appeals of FAA enforcement actions.

An NTSB administrative law judge ruled in March that Mr. Pirker’s drone was a model aircraft and thus not subject to FAA rules for manned aircraft. That decision raised questions over the FAA’s authority to regulate unmanned aircraft, at least until it completes rules for the devices in the next several years.

The FAA appealed to the NTSB’s board members, who ruled on Tuesday that existing laws’ definitions of aircraft include drones. “The plain language of the statutory and regulatory definitions is clear: an ‘aircraft’ is any device used for flight in the air,” the NTSB wrote. “We acknowledge the definitions are as broad as they are clear, but they are clear nonetheless.”

The NTSB ruling is a victory for the FAA, an agency that has struggled to regulate the rapidly increasing use of drones in U.S. skies. Technology has made nonmilitary drones smaller, cheaper, more powerful and easier to fly in recent years.

The FAA allows recreational use of the devices but virtually bans their use for commercial purposes. Many commercial users have ignored that policy, and some were emboldened by the March ruling that dismissed the FAA’s first fine for drone use.

The FAA is expected to propose rules for drones by the end of this year, which would likely take another year or two to become final.

Mr. Pirker’s attorney, Brendan Schulman, said in an email that Tuesday’s ruling “is narrowly limited to whether [drones] are subject to a single aviation safety regulation concerning reckless operation.” Mr. Schulman is representing three other clients in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in separate challenges to the FAA’s effective ban on commercial drones.

The FAA said the decision affirms its authority to “take enforcement action against anyone who operates a [drone] or model aircraft in a careless or reckless manner.”

The NTSB on Tuesday sent the case back to its administrative law judge to decide whether Mr. Pirker operated the aircraft carelessly or recklessly.

- Source: http://online.wsj.com