The State Plan for Aviation Safety, published today by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has set out two new actions: to work with the Department of Transport and drone industry stakeholders to facilitate the safe integration of drones into the Irish civil aviation system by Q4 2024 and to work with aircraft operators, airport operators and ANSPs to address the risks of drone infringements at aerodromes in accordance EASA guidance “Drone Incident Management at Aerodromes” by the fourth quarter 2025.
The following drone actions have been taken or are under development by the IAA
- Mature draft of National UAS policy framework under review
- IAA UAS Advisory Council established.
- IAA UAS implementation roadmap established including 7 workstreams:-
WS-1: Building Operation Capacity-
WS-2: Ensuring Effective Airspace Design & Usage-
WS-3: Facilitating Drone Products & Airworthiness-
WS-4: Enabling Innovation, Research & Development-
WS-5: Assuring Oversight, Enforcement and Security-
WS-6: Establish Market Surveillance Authority Role-
WS-7: Ensuring Safe Integration with Manned Aviation
- IAA drone website established (https://www.iaa.ie/general-aviation/drones)
- Pilot training modules provided for UAS pilots (ie open and specific category)
- Developing risk-based oversight and enforcement policies in open/specific categories
- National legislation being drafted to address privacy rights and enforcement powers
- Implementation of EU regulation concerning U-Space Service Providers (USSPs) per EU Regulation 2021-666 effective in January 2023.
- Work in progress to address UAS geographical zones and development of the geographical zone electronic dataset
- Regulatory support provided to industry in developing research projects and drone trials in Ireland
- Supporting EU development of regulation for certified UAS passenger operations
- Ongoing digitisation of Drones activities (e.g. applications, training, certificates etc) on IAA digital platform.
- Supporting ongoing development of Counter-UAS plans for airports
- Monitoring implementation of guidance and recommendations in accordance with EASA Guidance “Drone Incident Management at aerodromes” for aircraft operators, airports and ANSP’s.
- Developing drone sector risk register to help identify and mitigate main operational risks
- Conducting drone related safety promotion campaigns for open category ( e.g. pre-Christmas)
For more information
https://www.iaa.ie/news/2023/01/16/irish-state-plan-for-aviation-safety-2023-2025-published
