NTSB To Hold Safety Forum on UAVs

Air Safety Week,  March 10, 2008  

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The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a three-day forum on the safety of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

The Safety Board hearing will be conducted April 29 to May 1 in the NTSB Board Room and Conference Center in Washington.

The forum will provide an opportunity for Safety Board members and staff and interested parties to better understand the safety implications presented by the growing use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS).

Issues addressed will include: regulatory standards, integration with manned aircraft in the NAS, perspectives of current UAS operators, design, certification and airworthiness, human factors and future UAS applications. NTSB members will also hear perspectives of current users of the civil airspace.

The forum is a result of the Safety Board's investigation into a Predator B unmanned aircraft that crashed near Nogales, Arizona, in April 2006. The Board's October 2007 meeting on this accident resulted in 22 safety recommendations to address deficiencies associated with the civilian use of unmanned aircraft.

"The Nogales accident surfaced a number of important questions that need to be addressed if UASs are to operate safely in the National Air Space," said Board Member Kitty Higgins, who will chair the forum.

"We are very interested in the military's experience with UASs, training of pilots, maintenance of the aircraft, communication with Air Traffic Control and oversight of UAS operations by public use agencies and other operators," she added.

The forum will include representatives from the military, industry, the Federal Aviation Administration, and government agencies involved in UAS operations.

Interested members of the aviation community and general public are encouraged to attend.

A forum agenda will be announced in mid-April.

Representatives from the UAS industry are invited to set up display booths and unmanned aircraft vehicle scale models that demonstrate unmanned aircraft systems and technologies.

For those who can't attend, a live and archived webcast of the forum will be available on the Board's web site at www.ntsb.gov.

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