Dubai, London, Singapore, Frankfurt, Newark. This is just a partial list of the major airports where operations have been disrupted in the past several months because of reports ranging from drone sightings to coordinated “attacks” by unidentified groups or individuals intent on using drones to create havoc. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says reports of drone sightings have increased dramatically over the past two years, and that it now receives more than 100 such reports each month.
What is frustrating for drone manufacturers, associations and operators, as well as traditional aviation stakeholders, it that many, if not most, of these reports are unfounded or unconfirmed. In mid-2018, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report that, in describing the data collected by FAA on several types of safety events involving small drones, said “the accuracy and completeness of the data are questionable.”
FAA and other international regulatory bodies a…
