Drone safety threat to be examined by Europe

With the increase in use of drones, whether for commercial or recreational use, the number of incidents reported relating to near misses with commercial aircraft is on the increase. The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was forced to issue a warning last month after seven incidents of drones flying near planes at a number of British airports were reported in under a year. The European Commission has admitted that “drone accidents will happen” and has presented its aviation safety agency arm with the task of developing common rules for the operation of drones in Europe.
It is the smaller drones, operated like model planes and flown for recreation, which aviation bodies are primarily concerned about because their users are often unfamiliar with the rules of the air.
Philip von Schoeppenthau, Secretary General of the European Cockpit Association, stated that “The problem is that encounters with drones usually take place during the most critical phases of a flight, such as during take-off or landing when a drone strike could have potentially devastating consequences.” He then went on to indicate the dangers of a drone are greater than those of a bird strike, saying “While aircraft engines have been tested against bird strikes, there is no data yet on engine resistance, for example, against a 4 or 5 kilo drone being sucked into an engine.”
Pilots’ associations are among those who have called for drones to be fitted with geo-fencing technology, the use of GPS software which will stop drones flying into restricted airspace along with the application of height and distance limits, as well as the registration of drones.
Klaus-Dieter Scheurle, head of the DFS German air traffic authority, told Reuters that “We need a requirement for registration. That would allow us to identify those abusing the rules and stop them from flying.” Already a good number of cities have no-fly areas for drones, though this seems to be having little effect after incidents involving locations in Paris and the White House in the USA. In Berlin, for example, operators are required to have a license to fly above 30 m (100 feet). Scheurle said that the DFS had issued 125 permits in one sunny day for people wanting to fly drones on the city’s disused Tempelhof airfield. However it was estimated that eight times that number of drones were actually being flown that day.