Commercial Drone Flight is Legal In the USA
A judge of the National Transportation Safety Board (the NTSB) has ruled that the FAA has no authority to regulate commercial use of drones, striking down a six-year-old ban and saving a Swiss drone operator $10,000 that the FAA was trying to fine him. This could be the ruling that aerial filmmakers have been waiting for, however the FAA may still appeal the decision.
The battle began in 2011 when Raphael Pirker was issued a $10,000 fine for flying a drone around the University of Virgina to capture footage for a commercial for the university’s medical school.
As far as the FAA is concerned, commercial drone flight has been illegal since 2007; however, according to the court papers, they never created an enforceable rule. All they did was issue a policy statement.
As policy statements of an agency are not… binding upon the general public and as any regulatory effect is disclaimed, these Policy Memoranda cannot be, and are not, found as establishing a valid rule for classifying a model aircraft, as an UAS, or as finishing basis for assertion of FAR regulatory authority vis & vis model aircraft operations.
As such, commercial drone flight in the US is now officially legal once more… for now.
Commercial Drone Flight is Legal In the USA
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