Science advisers to the federal government say safety regulators should do more to speed the integration of commercial drones into the nation\u2019s airspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine said in a report Monday that federal safety regulators are often \u201coverly conservative\u201d and need to balance the overall benefits of drones instead of focusing only on their risk to airplanes and helicopters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Academy experts say the Federal Aviation Administration tilts against proposals for commercial uses of unmanned aircraft without considering their potential to reduce other risks and save lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, they say, when drones are used to inspect cellphone towers it reduces the risk of making workers climb up the towers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study was requested by Congress last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement, an FAA spokesman said the agency was working to safely speed the integration of drones into the airspace. The science board\u2019s recommendations match the FAA\u2019s efforts \u201cand we see them as an endorsement of our efforts and encouragement to accelerate our efforts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The academies leaned on a 14-member committee whose members come mostly from universities and research groups but also the aerospace industry, including a representative of Boeing\u2019s drone business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The high-level science board accused the FAA of making \u201coverly conservative risk assessments\u201d that have slowed beneficial commercial uses of drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn many cases, the focus has been on \u2018What might go wrong?\u2019 instead of a holistic risk picture\u201d that considers overall risk and benefit, the advisers wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, the advisers recommended, the FAA should meet requests for drone operations approvals by saying, \u201cHow can we approve this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The board was critical of FAA culture even while acknowledging that the FAA\u2019s approach has helped make manned aviation safer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe committee concluded that \u2018fear of making a mistake\u2019 drives a risk culture at the FAA that is too often overly conservative, particularly with regard to (drone) technologies, which do not pose a direct threat to human life in the same way as technologies used in manned aircraft,\u201d the board experts wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They said the FAA is sometimes \u201cexcessively risk averse,\u201d and staffers may believe they could endanger their careers by allowing any new risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The board said its committee recommended that the FAA be guided by asking whether it can make drone use as safe as other background risks in everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe do not ground airplanes because birds fly in the airspace, although we know birds can and do bring down aircraft,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIn many cases, the focus has been on \u2018What might go wrong?\u2019 instead of a holistic risk picture\u201d that considers overall risk and benefit, the advisers wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":39957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":9,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,31,33,9],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2224],"class_list":["post-23062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"WVY2LG2LBREPTDFURYZWUZ5UL4","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/2018\/06\/11\/science-panel-says-the-faa-is-too-tough-on-drones\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n