This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
I began the drone flight to inspect the subject property roof thinking I had the automated FAA authorization to fly in the Class D airspace.
After realizing that I had not written down the authorization on my work order I immediately discontinued the flight and landed the drone.
I then tried to obtain the automated approval through the Airmap application. Per the Airmap application, approvals up to 400 feet could be obtained, however, the application stated that the approval was not available on an automated basis at that time.
Flight was discontinued. The max height the drone climbed to was 110 feet without approval for a period less than a couple of minutes.
Pilot error was not obtaining approval before flight. The pilot thought the approval was already obtained, which was the reason the drone flight was started.
Future corrective action is to include the approval verification in the preflight checklist.
Primary Problem as determined by an ASRS analyst: Human Factors.
Please do not soil your page with drone stuff. Thisnis a pilots page and dronies never leave the ground.
Let’s stick to real pilot stuff please
I’m an instrument rated pilot and part 107 commercial drone pilot. My house is in the class D airspace of my home airport. Every time I want to fly my drone in my neighborhood, even for recreational use, I call the tower to get permission and let them know the max height I intend to fly (typically 100 ft). There are reasons to fly a drone near an airport and it is possible to do it safely.
Thanks for including drone reports in the series.
Sounds like another gigantic overreach by big brother .
One of these days the FAA will verify these hundreds of drone encounters that never really happened .
Way way too many Karen’s out there .
I’m sure there will be a hand full of Karen’s ever eager to confirm their own encounters without any verification other than someone told him ..
No one should be flying a drone near an airport and a few well placed newspaper articles about the gigantic fines would go a long way in eliminating 99% of anyone’s idea of flying near an airport.
Newspaper articles? Seriously? The fact that you think anyone reads the newspaper anymore…..geez.
Can we just get drone stuff off of this page, please? They are the red-headed stepchild of GA. They don’t belong here anymore than RC pilots or my kids with a styrofoam glider do.