In March
2012, volunteers spent four days looking for a two-year-old boy who
wandered away from his home outside Houston, Texas. They found him
only after volunteers reviewing images captured by a drone-mounted
aerial camera saw a flash of red in a pond that had already been
searched. It turned out to be a shirt worn by the child, who had
drowned.
That was not the first time members of Texas EquuSearch had used
these small model planes to help locate a missing person. But if
the Federal Aviation Administration has its way, it won’t happen
again.
In February, the group got a letter from the FAA demanding that
it stop using unmanned aircraft in search-and-rescue efforts, which
it says violates its ban on the commercial use of drones. It’s a
perfect example of government regulators using imaginary problems
to justify sweeping restrictions.
The agency fears that without its benevolent intervention, small
drones will endanger commercial airliners, private jets and people
on the ground. But as Steve Chapman points out, the FAA is ignoring
its own history, which indicates that tiny flying machines are no
particular cause for worry.
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