Drones Raise Safety Issues as Service Roles Multiply

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 20, 2007

From the comfort of a control center at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, pilot Mark Pestana will gun the throttle of his unmanned aircraft, pull back on the stick and gently guide his plane into the sky next month.

But he will not be using the high-tech modified Predator B drone to seek out and kill insurgents in Iraq or Taliban in Afghanistan.

Instead, his mission will be to comb the western United States for forest fires and to relay infrared images and photographs of the blazes to firefighters on the ground.

Routinely seen and heard in the skies above Iraq and Afghanistan, drones are being flown in growing numbers in the United States on a variety of missions, including probing hurricanes and spotting illegal immigrants crossing the border.

The increasing use of unmanned vehicles, which range in size from those that can fit in your hand to twin-engine jets, has met resistance from federal regulators struggling to safely incorporate the devices into the nation's airspace. The drones have also raised fundamental questions about the nature of flight and what it means to be a pilot.

The Federal Aviation Administration is allowing unmanned vehicles to fly on a case-by-case basis only after regulators have been convinced that the aircraft will be operated safely and be confined to specific segments of airspace.

This year, regulators expect to grant more than 130 waivers to government agencies to use unmanned flying machines, up from 64 two years ago. The FAA has granted private companies nine certificates to operate drones in the United States this year -- a total of 13 have been granted since 2005 -- so they can test their products, regulators said.

Among the heaviest users of drones in civil airspace are the military, intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security, according to FAA officials. The missions usually involve training runs or flying through the airspace on the way to war zones, FAA officials said.

"There may be an agency in the government that hasn't asked us" to use a drone, said Marion C. Blakey, the FAA administrator. "But I would be hard pressed to think of which one hasn't. We are trying very hard to be very flexible. . . . But it is a very complex issue."

Government agencies love larger drones, such as the 10,000-pound Predator B, because they often are packed with sophisticated cameras and sensors and can loiter in the sky for hours without refueling. Smaller drones have the benefit of being very maneuverable and can get close to hazardous material spills or other situations that would endanger flight crews.

NASA and the U.S. Forest Service have been flying a Predator this summer to monitor forest fires. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are adding three to their squadron by early next year to help patrol the border with Canada and to observe the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The agency has been operating drones above the border with Mexico since 2004. It got its first Predator B, which is built by General Atomics, in 2005.

U.S. weather scientists plan in the coming months to routinely dispatch 30-pound drones into hurricanes and tropical storms to gather temperature, wind speed and precipitation data. The flights will penetrate areas too dangerous for manned planes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which sent a drone into a tropical storm in 2005.

Rescuers in December sent up small drones in a last-ditch effort to locate hikers trapped on Mount Hood in Oregon, and the Forest Service evaluated small drones during a blaze in Montana last summer to see whether they were capable of helping firefighters. The agency says it expects firefighters on the ground to be outfitted with such backpack-sized drones by next year's fire season.

At least three police departments have purchased or have budgeted money to buy small aircraft to help them respond to emergencies. And the Department of Homeland Security expects in the coming months to start testing whether large drones can fly high above airports and use lasers or other measures to deflect shoulder-fired missiles aimed at jetliners.

Despite the enthusiasm of drone users, safety experts are concerned about allowing too many into civil airspace too quickly.

During the rescue efforts on Mount Hood, the small drones crashed 11 times because of high winds, according to the FAA. In April of last year, a Predator B that was patrolling the border for customs officials crashed near homes in Arizona. Investigators said the plane's pilot accidentally shut off its fuel flow.

Mark V. Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators will soon issue safety recommendations to FAA and customs officials "about a host of issues on everything from design and operational management to coordination with air traffic control."

"There is obviously a large scope of issues to examine," he said.

Top FAA officials said they were working with manufacturers, government agencies and pilot groups to devise rules and better technology to allow drones to operate safely and with fewer restrictions.

They do not expect to stop their case-by-case approach until the technology improves enough to allow those flying the drones to reliably detect and avoid other aircraft or obstacles in the sky -- just like real pilots in real cockpits, regulators said.

At a recent meeting of industry leaders, military officers, regulators and pilots who are helping the FAA deal with the issue, the participants often got into heated debates about how to set up rules for safely operating drones in civil airspace.

"This is the second revolution in aviation since the Wright Brothers first flew on Kitty Hawk in 1903," said John Walker, an aviation industry consultant who is overseeing the effort to help the FAA. "This is bigger than mixing jet airplanes with prop airplanes and the building of complex airport operations with passenger jets flying today."

Although some government agencies are successfully flying drones in civil airspace, others are expressing frustration at what they call the government's slow pace in approving a potentially helpful tool.

In Florida, Palm Bay police officials last year set aside $35,000 to purchase a small drone and its control systems to help them patrol their 100-square-mile city on the Atlantic Coast, said Doug Muldoon, the department's deputy chief. The drone is equipped with a video or infrared camera.

But Palm Bay's drone, built by Cyber Defense Systems, was grounded by the FAA because the department hadn't obtained a waiver. Police agencies in North Carolina and Southern California have also been told not to fly their drones in the past two years. Palm Bay is working to obtain a certificate, Muldoon said.

But police officials such as Muldoon are particularly irked by the FAA's restrictions because the agency has allowed hobbyists to continue flying larger and faster remote-controlled planes. Those model aircraft often don't have safety features that are standard equipment on drones, which can glide back to earth after running out of power or even return to base after losing a radio signal, police officials said.

John Blitch, who owns a private company and is director of a nonprofit group that both use drones and ground-based robots to respond to emergencies, flew small unmanned planes during the unsuccessful rescue attempts on Mount Hood. He sees vast potential for drones, especially in search-and-rescue operations. But he is frustrated by regulators' hurdles that make it difficult for his pilots to hone their skills before getting FAA permission to fly a mission.

"Our airplanes are small and even look like birds -- so much so that other birds attack them and make mating advances on our aircraft," said Blitch, who runs the nonprofit Alliance for Robot Assisted Crisis Assessment and Response. "The government doesn't regulate birds."