Today the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register (86 FR 27550-27551) for “Amendment to the Definition of Unmanned Aircraft Accident”. The rulemaking would remove the weight-based requirement and replacing it with an airworthiness certificate or airworthiness approval requirement. This action is being undertaken to reflect the evolving nature of UAS usage and regulation.
Current Definition
The current definition of the term ‘unmanned aircraft accident’ is found at 49 CFR 830.2. It includes in that definition a requirement that the occurrence defining the accident includes either of the two following characteristics:
• Any person suffers death or
serious injury; or
• The aircraft has a maximum gross takeoff
weight of 300 pounds or greater and sustains substantial damage.
Proposed Change
In this rulemaking, the NTSB is proposing to replace the second characteristic with the phrase: ““holds an airworthiness certificate or approval”. The Preamble to the NPRM notes that:
“While this definition ensured that the NTSB expended resources on UAS events involving the most significant risk to public safety, the advent of higher capability UAS applications—such as commercial drone delivery flights operating in a higher risk environment (e.g., populated areas, beyond line-of-sight operations, etc.)—has prompted the agency to propose an updated definition of “unmanned aircraft accident.”
This change will “will treat a UAS with airworthiness certification or airworthiness approval in the same manner as a manned aircraft with airworthiness certification or airworthiness approval, thereby enabling the NTSB to immediately investigate, influence corrective actions, and propose safety recommendations.”
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