Skip to footer

Another drone crashes near White House. Can FAA keep up with drones?

After the second drone this year crashes near the White House, the FAA considers using drone-zapping new technology in order to supplement regulation and monitor the proliferating drones in protected airspace. 

|
William Luther/The San Antonio Express/AP
Midstream Integrity lead engineer Frank Hurtado uses a computer to check the systems on an octocopter drone Midstream Integrity is FAA-approved, but the FAA may start using anti-drone technology to monitor the proliferating drones in protected airspace.

Another drone has tried to visit the White House, and the government is now considering new anti-drone technology in an effort to contain the rise in civilian drone fliers. 

A man from Washington, D.C., flew a drone around the Washington Monument and crash-landed it near the White House on Friday. No one was hurt, but US Park Police confiscated the drone and cited the man, who will appear in court. The police said this is the ninth time this year that a drone – in this case an F182 6 Axis Quadcopter – has entered the Washington area, although everything within 15 miles of Reagan National Airport is supposed to be off-limits to drones, the Washington Post reported. 

Incidents like this is may partly explain why the Federal Aviation Authority has signaled an interest in anti-drone technology. The FAA announced an agreement Wednesday with a company that can make technology that will find and track drones not following FAA rules. The FAA will test whether the technology is safe and effective in tracking drones within a five-mile radius of the airport.

The project with CACI International, Inc., is the FAA's newest strategy to deal with drones, which have appeared in all sorts of places – from wildfires to prisons – that the FAA does not sanction, The Christian Science Monitor reported. 

Another anti-drone option being tested in the private sector is called an Anti-UAV Defense System, the BBC reported. It can freeze a drone in mid-air by overwhelming its wireless link to an operator by transmitting a powerful radio signal at it. The operator would either get the message and bring the drone down, or the new tool could hold the drone in place until its battery died if necessary, the company claims.

Asked by the BBC whether the UK would consider using such technology, the spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority wasn't interested. He said the regulations governing drones in British airspace have been in place for some time, and the main focus now was on making sure they are understood.

"We've had our rules in place for over six years now," he told the BBC. "The FAA are a little late to the party in many ways – they developed their regulations only recently."

The current FAA regulations are moving on an "incremental basis," the FAA told NBC News, after the agency missed its second deadline to create comprehensive regulations for drone use this month. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Another drone crashes near White House. Can FAA keep up with drones?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/1009/Another-drone-crashes-near-White-House.-Can-FAA-keep-up-with-drones
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe