UAV - I England reageres det strengt

CAA Gets First UK Conviction for Dangerous 

UAS Flying

A TV-repair shop owner who has become the first person convicted
in the UK for“dangerously” flying a UAS says the fine and legal costs
will bankrupt him. Robert Knowles, 46, of Barrow-in-Furness, was
fined £800 and ordered to pay costs of£3,500 at the Furness and
District Magistrate court on Tuesday after being prosecuted by the
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
He pleaded guilty to flying a small unmanned surveillance aircraft
within 50 metres of a structure – the Jubilee Bridge on the Walney
channel – and flying over a nuclear installation, the BAE System
submarine-testing facility.The CAA said that the case
raised important safety issues concerning recreational flying of
unmanned aircraft, which is legal as long as it is done away from
built-up areas and structures.
“The Jubilee Bridge is used by vehicles – this could have hit a car
and caused an accident,” said a CAA spokesperson. “People have to
understand that they are subject to air safety rules and that there
are potentially serious safety concerns.”
But Knowles told the Guardian that the conviction was “ridiculous”.
He said that hehad been flying his £1,000 drone in a field a mile and
a half away from the base on the morning of Sunday 25 August 2013
when the 4 ft, kit-built drone – with acamera on board – suddenly
lost radio contact during its seventh flight.
“The radio failed and it flew away down the Walney channel,” Knowles
told the Guardian. “I couldn’t have controlled it. I don’t know why the
radio failed. It landed in the sea channel, and the salt water ruined it.”
He said that he had been flying the drone recreationally, as he had
done “for years”.
His YouTube channel shows around 309 videos shot using a UAS.
The video shows that the UAS  flew on for more than three minutes
after Knowles apparently lost control.
Knowles insisted that he had not been trying to hide the UAS
presence or identity.
“It had my name and address on it, and was in bright colours.”
Workers from the nuclear facility fished it out of the channel and
passed it on to police.
“I flicked the return-to-home button but it didn’t do anything,”
Knowles said. “It didn’t fly anywhere near the BAE Systems facility.”
But he said that he had effectively been told by the magistrate at the
first hearing on 1 March that he was guilty, and that his choices at
the hearing on 2 April had been “plead guilty and get a big fine, or
plead not guilty and be convicted and get a big fine, or go home
and get a big fine.”
He said that his TV repair business was already running at a loss
and that the fine would bankrupt him.
He said that his conviction relating to the nuclear facility made little
sense. “A lot of people use cameras on cars and have helmet cameras
and they all go past BAE,” he said. “My plane didn’t go anywhere near
it. Apparently there’s a no-fly zone which covers it, but there was
nothing I could do about it.”
He added: “Where I live in Cumbria, you’re always going to be near
a nuclear dump –Sellafield or the BAE Systems site.”
Knowles’s case is the first conviction involving recreational use of a
drone, though acaution was recently issued against a photographer
from Lancashire, for “using an unmanned aerial vehicle for
commercial gain without permission”. The photographer
sold footage of a fire at a school to media organisations despite not
having clearance from the CAA to operate the device commercially.