When flying robots interfere

Not just for bombing terrorists and patrolling borders anymore, drones are increasingly being used by members of the general public to gather footage of natural disasters. Officials fighting California’s recent spate of wildfires are encountering problems with these flying robots — issues that could potentially put lives in danger.

Indeed, at least five firefighting operations over the past month — including one last weekend that engulfed motorists on the highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas — have been forced to temporarily suspend some of their efforts due to drone activity in the area.

For water-bombers and other support aircraft, colliding with a drone could be disastrous, especially when the bombers are left vulnerable and subject to sudden changes in elevation after dropping their loads. And, unlike professional pilots operating news helicopters, many drone pilots are amateurs who have little or no experience with flying and virtually no knowledge of flight-safety procedures.

So should we equip water bombers and rescue helicopters with Sidewinder missiles to blast intruding drones from the skies? We kid, but that’s basically what two California lawmakers are proposing with a bill introduced Monday that would give first responders legal immunity for shooting down or otherwise disabling drones. (Whether having bullets shooting into the air and hunks of metal falling from the sky during an emergency would do anything to improve the situation is another matter entirely.)

While giving firefighters the ability to shoot down aircraft sounds like something that would only happen in America, it doesn’t strike us as a completely terrible idea, in theory. This will certainly not be the last time that drones interfere with emergency or rescue operations and taking steps to try to prevent this from happening in the future would seem a prudent step. Finding some way to jam or hijack a drone’s remote control signals seems, to us, a more reasonable idea than filling the skies with flak shells, but studying means to get interfering drones out of a disaster area, fast, seems a prudent idea.

But we should proceed cautiously. Putting too many restrictions on drones will only serve to hurt this fastgrowing industry and unnecessarily curtail the freedoms that enthusiasts should be allowed to enjoy.

A separate bill introduced in the California legislature would impose fines or jail time for people caught interfering with fire operations.

While putting someone behind bars for playing with a toy seems a little harsh, it is certainly reasonable to establish limited no-fly zones around emergency operations requiring air support — such as fire, police chases and search and rescue missions — and to give authorities the teeth necessary to back up those restrictions.

Here at home, Transport Canada’s website warns drone operators not to fly within nine kilometres of an airport, or anywhere that might “interfere with first responders.” That’s fair. What we don’t want to happen is for governments to place so many restrictions on drones that they become costprohibitive for ordinary people to fly. Nor do we want to limit legitimate uses, such as gathering news footage or assisting a search and rescue operation, so long as the drones don’t impede emergency officials. And it would certainly not be good if no-fly zones became so restrictive that someone who, say, used a drone to videotape an incident of police brutality, could face legal ramifications.

Small aircraft flooding our airspace will quickly become a reality as drones become cheaper and adapted to numerous commercial applications. Governments have an obligation to balance the safety of the public and public officials with the liberties that should be enjoyed by drone operators. Transport Canada should keep this in mind as it gets set to revamp its regulations surrounding unmanned air vehicles in 2016. In the meantime, we will watch developments in California with interest.