Pilots now ‘very concerned’ over dangers from UAVs

The Air Line Pilots’ Association, ALPA, is making it clear they want to see a multi-angled approach to dealing with safety issues involving UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). This comes hot on the heels of the FAAs warning that “pilot reports of unmanned aircraft have increased dramatically over the past year, from a total of 238 sightings in all of 2014 to more than 650 by Aug. 9 of this year.”
The President of the ALPA, Tim Canoll, spoke to the press during a roundtable discussion, stating that a good number of his union members are “very concerned” about UAVs, while “Regulators and the public are trying to play catchup on the technology.” Canoll made it clear he saw the threat coming from two distinct categories – smaller UAVs which are not intended to be operated in commercial aircraft airspace, and then the larger UAVs that will share airliners’ airspace.
Concerning smaller UAVs, ALPA is all for educating operators as well as installing “geo-fencing” technology that would effectively prohibit smaller UAVs from operating within 5 miles of an airport. Additionally there should be registration of all UAVs so that in the event of an incident, the owner of the UAV can be traced. Finally ALPA wants to see “more formalized” enforcement against those operators whose UAVs encroach on airliners’ airspace.
Where the larger UAVs are concerned and the sharing of commercial airspace becomes relevant, these UAVs should be subjected to FAA oversight. Canoll made it very clear that regulations have to be put in place to ensure “they operate exactly the same way” as airliners. That would include licensing operators as pilots, as well as equipping the larger UAVs with collision avoidance technology. However Canoll underlined that ALPA is still a “big supporter” of UAV technology providing they are operated safely.