Three men in Beijing flew a drone for surveying, were forced to land by Air Force fighter jets, and then faced criminal prosecution
[Tip]A Beijing-based aerial photography company dispatched personnel to operate a drone for aerial filming without applying for airspace. Due to the sudden incident, military authorities urgently intervened, sparking a controversy. Three individuals involved in the case, including Hao, were arrested by police and charged by Pinggu District Court with endangering public safety through dangerous means.
[Case]According to the prosecution, on December 28 of last year, the person in charge of the company arranged for the company's flight team leader, Hao, and employees Qiao and Li to operate a drone to conduct aerial photography and surveying of the Sanhe business airport project in Hebei. The company did not actually possess the qualifications for aerial photography and surveying, and the drone was launched that day without prior application for airspace. On December 29 of the same year, Hao, Qiao, and others took the drone for aerial photography. Because no airspace application had been made, during the model aircraft's flight photography, Air Force radar detected it as an unidentified flying object. The relevant Air Force department dispatched two helicopters to intercept it and force it to land, while other aircraft, personnel, and vehicles stood by or participated in the response. During this process, multiple civil aviation flights had to evade or were delayed, among which a loss of 1.8 yuan was caused to Air China. After the relevant Air Force department investigated the situation, it informed the police of the matter.
The police apprehended Qiao and Li at the scene, while Hao voluntarily surrendered after receiving a phone call from the police. The prosecution argued that Hao and the other two clearly foresaw that their actions could endanger public safety but recklessly believed they could avoid harm, resulting in significant damage to public property. Their actions are suspected of endangering public safety through dangerous means. Pinggu Court has accepted the case, and a trial date will be set.
(Beijing Times)
[Learn the Law] Discussing the "absence" of regulations on surveying and mapping drone management.
Surveying and mapping refers to the activities of determining, collecting, and expressing the shape, size, spatial position, and attributes of natural geographical features or surface artificial facilities, as well as processing and providing the acquired data, information, and results. This activity is a preliminary and fundamental task for national economic and social development, and an indispensable basic guarantee for economic and social development. For example, the Fujian Provincial Institute of Surveying and Mapping, together with the Provincial Marine Forecast Station and Xiamen University, jointly carried out the research on the sub-project of the National 863 Program project “Integrated Application Demonstration of Refined Monitoring of Marine Environment in Sea Areas: UAV Marine Monitoring System”, which involves monitoring water bodies by equipping UAVs with multi-band spectrometers to carry out monitoring of red tides and oil spills on the sea surface.
However, according to relevant civil aviation regulations, if an aircraft is to take off, it requires approval from three parties: the regional administration, the air traffic control bureau, and the air force. The regional administration needs to review the flight approval plan and the applying company’s flight qualifications; the air traffic control bureau is mainly responsible for determining whether it is suitable to schedule flights in a given area and how to avoid civil aviation flights; the air force is mainly responsible for determining whether the low-altitude airspace can be opened to it during a certain period.
The problem is that there are currently no domestic regulations governing drone management, and there are no similar precedents for this case. Under relevant domestic laws and regulations (such as the “four laws and one regulation,” namely the Surveying and Mapping Law, the Military Facilities Protection Law, the National Security Law, the Law on Guarding State Secrets, and the Regulations on the Administration of Surveying and Mapping Results), there is currently no specific basis for punishing such conduct. However, such conduct has already affected the takeoff and landing of more than a dozen flights and should be regarded as having relatively serious consequences. Therefore, the above incident will not only become the first criminal case precedent for such conduct, but will also very likely give rise to China’s first national public safety management regulation for drones, offering significant guidance for similar cases in the future.
