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Faa drone complaints11/30/2023 But in other instances it has fined people for flying a drone without "an operable coded radar beacon transponder," and "automatic altitude reporting equipment." These are instruments almost no drones have, and the regulations being used are for manned aircraft. The standard violations the FAA cites are ones that prohibit people from operating an aircraft "in a careless or reckless manner," or in certain types of airspace. The FAA has one go-to violation it cites when fining drone pilots, but the agency is willing to pull out additional regulations or violations if it wants to throw the book at a person or company. "There's drones being used all over the country, so why such a focus on New York, Washington, and Boston?" she said. "Some inspectors call it an aircraft, some places it's an unmanned system." The allegations, even though they're coordinated through headquarters, are all over the place," Loretta Alkalay, who was head of the FAA's Eastern Regional legal office for 20 years and is now a drone law professor, told me. "The penalties are disturbingly all over the place. This means that almost all of the FAA's drone fines have come in east coast cities, with a couple of isolated fines in Texas, Alabama, and Puerto Rico. Those fines make at least some amount of sense-more puzzlingly, the FAA has fined people for flights that have ended in no incident whatsoever, and once fined two people who crashed their drones into each other over the ocean in Puerto Rico.Īlmost all of the fines have come from the FAA's eastern region office, which appears to have taken a hardline stance against drones. The FAA has issued fines to people who have flown drones into public buildings, over sports stadiums, and in Washington DC's restricted flight area. "They propose a scare-you-to-death fine, you talk to them, and then they give you a slap-on-the-wrist fine and go on their way," Peter Sachs, a Connecticut-based drone attorney told me. "There's drones being used all over the country, so why such a focus on New York, Washington, and Boston?" All of these documents are embedded at the bottom of this post. Commercial operators have been fined as much as $1.9 million. More commonly, the FAA fines people between $1,100 and $2,200 and, if it receives pushback, offers to settle for much less. The documents the FAA sent me show that the fine for flying a drone recklessly vary wildly: Some hobbyists have settled with the FAA for as little as $400, while others, such as the man who crashed his drone on the White House lawn, have paid as much as $5,500.
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