From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Watchdog Report Podcast Looks at FAA Role Ensuring Safety Among Drones and Passenger Planes Description: 1.1 million Americans flew drones in 2017 according to the FAA. And that number is expected to more than double over the next five years. The Watchdog Report podcast goes on location to discuss how the FAA plans to maintain safety in the national airspace as the industry grows. Related GAO Work: GAO-18-110: Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems: FAA Should Improve Its Management of Safety Risks Released: May 2018 [ First Screen ] Accountability [ Second Screen ] Integrity [ Third Screen ] Reliability [ Fourth Screen ] GAO Logo [ Background Music ] [ Heather Krause: ] Drone use is increasing rapidly. [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport ] FAA is really working hard to keep pace with all the changes in the industry. [ Background Music, Watchdog Report logo ] [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] Welcome to the Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. 1.1 million Americans flew drones in 2017, and the FAA expects that number to more than double over the next five years. [ Footage of drone assembly ] It's growth that could come with some growing pains because experts will need to maintain safety when anyone can fly one of these drones weighing just a few pounds in the same skies as more established, larger aircraft. I'm here at Washington DC's Reagan National Airport with Heather Krause. She's a director on our Physical Infrastructure team and she led a GAO report on drone safety. Heather, what kind of trouble would I get in if I turned this on and flew it here? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] You cannot fly drones around the national airport, in fact, there is a 15-mile radius restriction on around flying drones. What you're holding there is what is seen to be a recreational drone. They tend to be under 55 pounds, and really are -- you're not allowed to fly them in a way that would interfere with any manned aircraft. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] Okay. I'm going to put this down so that I'm not a safety risk. But speaking of, what are some of the safety risks when it comes to drones? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] What makes drones unique is kind of a couple unique safety risks. [Footage of drone operations ] First of all, you have sort of the pilot and the aircraft disconnected because you have a pilot working off of a remote, and the aircraft other places. So, it can be hard for a pilot of a drone to see when it's getting close to a manned aircraft and might collide with it. [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport Additionally, because of that sort of disconnection between the remote and the aircraft itself, you can also run the risks of communication links breaking and an operator losing control of the drone. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] So, I'm sure with some of these concerns are something that the FAA has to deal with, with commercial aircraft, [ footage of airport operations ] like the activity we see behind you right now. What role does the FAA play in maintaining drone safety? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] FAA really is responsible for the safety of the entire national airspace system, whether, as you pointed out, the aircraft here or drones or any other aircraft in the system. How they're approaching that is, they are developing safety standards and regulations to really oversee the use of drones and sort of safely integrating them and their operation into the National Airspace System with other types of aircraft. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] So, what sort of plan does the FAA have for the future of drone safety? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] So, they have a number of efforts underway in terms of figuring out how best to integrate drones into the National Airspace System. In addition to some of the regulations, I mean, they continue to take an incremental approach there of finding -- you know, looking at how to -- how can you operate drones safely beyond a line of sight in terms of the pilot not being able to see the aircraft and still safely operate it. They're also evaluating a number of technologies. Whether it's detecting drones at airports and around airports, and also improving the data that they collect on drones to help inform all of their plans and regulations and standards. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] How do they collect that data? I mean, do they rely on people to report safety issues to the FAA? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] Currently, what they do, as you say, collect data from reported sightings of potentially unsafe use of drones. Much of that data's coming from pilots and air traffic control facilities. [ Graphic showing report GAO-18-110 ] However, as we talk about in our report, much of that data, sort of accuracy and the completeness is variable and that comes from the fact that drones, they can be difficult to definitively identify, and they also typically aren't picked up on radar. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] So, it sounds out like the FAA's in the data-collecting mode right now when it comes to these drones, and it sounds like there's some crowd-sourced information they're relying on. Is the FAA going in the right direction? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] You know, again, what we have found is they are taking a very incremental approach to doing this. Our report really identified ways that they could enhance some of the steps that they're taking in terms of developing their standards and regulations-opportunities really, to improve how they approach their controls, and sort of oversight of potential safety risks. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] So, Heather, what did your team recommend? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] We found that FAA's taking a number of steps [ Footage of FAA building in Washington, DC ] to really manage the safety risks of the system, but we did find opportunities for them to improve how they oversee and manage potential safety risks. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airport: ] So, Heather, what's the bottom line of the report? [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airport: ] Drone use is increasing rapidly. FAA is really working hard to keep pace with all the changes in the industry. You know, there's a number of efforts underway, which we highlight in our report, and really identified some opportunities to strengthen some of those efforts. [ Matt Oldham, at Reagan National Airpot: ] Sounds great. Well, thanks for being here Heather. [ Background Music ] [ Heather Krause, at Reagan National Airpot: ] Thank you. [ Matt Oldham: ] All right. And thank you for joining us. 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