First Calgarian charged for flying drone wins new trial
The first person charged in Calgary for operating a drone has been granted a new trial after successfully appealing his conviction in March, just days before Transport Canada stiffened its rules around the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).
But while the fate of 26-year-old Syed Gohar Haider Shah won’t be determined until his new trial, which begins Sept. 6, it could have implications for future enforcement in an exponentially growing sphere that’s evolving almost daily.
Shah was charged last January after officers allegedly saw him operating a drone in a public park in the flight path of the Calgary International Airport.
In his Sept. 28, 2016, trial, he was found guilty of a regulatory charge under Canadian Aviation Regulations making it an offence to “fly a model aircraft ... in a manner that is or is likely to be hazardous to aviation safety.”
The same law also applies to kites, model rockets and fireworks. Shah was fined $500. “I am satisfied that the Crown has met the burden of establishing to my satisfaction, and I’m not certain whether it’s beyond a reasonable doubt ... that in the actions taken by this particular accused in flying that drone in close proximity to the Calgary International Airport ... were in a manner likely to be hazardous to aviation safety,” Judge Terry Semenuk said during his ruling.
The judge hearing the appeal, Justice Jolaine Antonio, ruled that Semenuk’s apparent uncertainty about whether the case was proved beyond a reasonable doubt warranted a new trial.
Erika Carrasco, the lawyer who represented Shah on the appeal and specializes in civil law around UAVs and self-driving vehicles, declined to discuss specifics of the case pending the retrial, but said in general, laws around drone use are still in their relative infancy and continue to be refined.
“The major problem is while I think the laws with respect to recreational use are quite clear, users themselves might not always be aware of them.”
Less than two weeks after Shah’s conviction was overturned, Transport Canada updated its rules around UAVs with interim rules to curb “reckless drone use,” including limiting altitude to less than 90 metres, outlawing night flying and banning flight within 75 metres of buildings, vehicles or people, as well as within nine kilometres of any airport, heliport or aerodrome.
Jeff Ducharme, a journalism instructor at Newfoundland’s College of the North Atlantic who’s been at the forefront of drone technology for four years, said while Shah’s successful appeal primarily seems to boil down to “legal semantics,” nascent laws around the use of UAVs make every incident that goes before the courts notable.
“There are going to be issues. The main issue is Transport Canada has given the police the tools to lay charges, but you haven’t given them the resources needed for enforcement,” said Ducharme.
“At the end of the day, these laws are going to make it safer, but you’re still going to have that group of people — the YouTube cowboys and the militants — who are going to be the main issue. The out-ofthe-box flyers are going to test the rules because they’re not going to know the rules,” he said.
“When the first automobiles hit the streets, people panicked,” he said.
“Drones are just as much of a disruptive technology and certainly as much of a cultural game-changer as cars were.”