Because of the idiocy of drone owners flying their machines illegally in the flight path of commercial aircraft, all drones over 250 grammes soon will have to be licensed and insured.
The government is to "advance by the end of this month" with the submission of regulations for the mandatory registration of drones over 250 grammes, said the Minister of Planning and Infrastructures, today, admitting that “there is much to do."
"The drone is a subject that worries me a lot," said Minister Pedro Marquês, during a parliamentary hearing of the Committee on Economy, Innovation and Public Works.
In response to questions from the CDS-PP member of parliament, Hélder Amaral about drone regulation, Marquês said that he will push ahead with the compulsory registration of drones, saying that their regulation will be important for safety.
The minister obviously wants aircraft to land safely and recalled that the future European regulation for drones "will only enter into force in 2018" and that Portugal needs to improve national regulations, and present draft amendments "by the end of this month."
At the end of June, the president of the National Civil Aviation Authority, Luís Ribeiro, announced in parliament that he intends to propose to the Government, "by the end of July," a draft legislation on drones that makes it mandatory to register equipment and ban under 16-year-olds from owming and operating drones.
Ribeiro said that "additional measures must be taken" due to the increase in near misses between drones and aircraft.
In addition to mandatory registration, the Government will make insurance obligatory.
"We will not solve all the challenges," said Pedro Marques, adding that Portugal is not a European country with a high number of occurrences with drones, the UK and France top that list and Portugal will look at legislation in these two countries to see if it can be transposed.
The regulation of drones recently has been in the news due to near-misses with commercial flights but for Marquês, the main aspects for legislation are invasion of privacy and drones falling out of the sky and hitting someone.
Pedro Marques said that drone control technology is advancing and "systems are being tested" with work being carried out by the National Civil Aviation Authority, airport managers ANA and air traffic control.
"We believe it will be feasible to install radars for the detection of these drones," said Marquês, pointing out that there then must be swift follow-up by the authorities to catch drone operators.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been 14 drone incidents reported by the National Civil Aviation Authority where commercial pilots have reported near misses as they come in to land. In June there were eight such events, each risking the lives of passengers and crew.
