AAMS lays out stance on drones
The US-based Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS) is calling for five-mile UAV exclusion zones around emergency aircraft operations.
The US-based Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS) has released a position paper setting out its official position on the use of unmanned aircraft. The statement highlights the dangers that UAVs pose to segments of the aviation community that often operate at low altitudes, away from airports, including air medical and law enforcement organisations.
AAMS asserts: “Emergency responders, on the ground and in the air, are discovering the presence of UAV/UAS with increasing frequency, creating unique safety and operational concerns. Those encounters, during the course of emergency medical transport operations, pose a safety risk to our flight crews and our emergency medical services (EMS) personnel and delay getting patients in need to the appropriate healthcare facilities. When adapting federal regulations to the emerging UAV/UAS enterprise, the safety of all aviation operations, the safety of emergency responders and patients, and the right to privacy of healthcare providers and patients in need must be paramount considerations.”
The ability of piloted aircraft to see small unmanned aircraft in time to avoid them cannot be presumed, says AAMS, as their small size and high speed of travel render them ‘virtually invisible’. The responsibility to see and avoid therefore must rest with the UAV operators and reasonable separation requirements must be established, says the Association, adding: “Future legislation should require UAV/UAS be equipped with systems that maintain established separation requirements, between the UAV/UAS and any other aircraft, without operator input.”
AAMS listed a series of regulatory requirements that would allow integration of drones into low-level airspace while optimising the safety and privacy of emergency personnel and patients in need of assistance. The measures called for include:
- A five-mile exclusion zone around any emergency incident (EMS, search and rescue, law enforcement, or firefighting), for UAVs other than those essential craft authorised and controlled by the incident command authority.
- No UAV to be allowed to operate within five miles of the perimeter of any fixed or rotary-wing manned emergency aircraft operations.
- No UAV to operate within five miles of emergency aircraft arriving, departing, or otherwise occupying any airport, heliport, helispot, or any emergency landing zone.
- UAV operators to take action to see and avoid, and yield right of way to, fixed-wing or rotary aircraft.
- UAV/UAS operating within Federal Aviation Administration defined controlled or uncontrolled airspace to be operated only during day visual meteorological conditions (VMC), with a visibility minimum of three statute miles, cloud clearance requirements of 2,000 ft in any direction, and at no time should they operate above a cloud layer while being operated in the National Airspace System.
- All UAV systems to include technology to allow other aircraft to identify the UAV from a safe distance through automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS-B) technology.
- No recording of video footage of non-emergency personnel without prior written consent, to protect a patient’s rights to privacy.
- National regulatory bodies to work with stakeholders, including the UAV industry, to ensure that technologies being developed to prevent encroachment of UAVs into designated sensitive airspace are both compatible with technologies currently being used in emergency response aircraft and take into account emergency management concerns.
AAMS also called for legislation to be put in place so that the regulations can be backed up by appropriate enforcement action for operators who create a hazard to safe emergency operations by not following these guidelines.