30 FAA v. Pirker – Administrative Law Judge Decision

Audio transcript of NTSB Docket CP-217, FAA v. Raphael Pirker. We reported In Episode 29 that a decision had been rendered in the case of the FAA v. Raphael Pirker, also known as Trappy in the sUAS community. The FAA claimed that Pirker flew a Ritewing Zephyr , which they considered to be a UAS, as a commercial operation. Furthermore, that in so doing, Pirker endangered life and property. The FAA fined Pirker US$10,000. Pirker appealed, and the NTSB Administrative Law Judge dismissed the charges on March 6, 2014. Some of the press, as well as some UAS enthusiasts, proclaimed that this decision now lets commercial drone operations begin. We at The UAV Digest continue to believed that it’s a little premature to draw that conclusion. There are many unanswered questions surrounding this issue, and there is an appeal process which the FAA has initiated. We expect that we’ll be following this story and exploring the issues for quite some time. We began by studying the judge’s Decisional Order, NTSB Docket CP-217. What we’ve done in this episode, as a first step, is create an audio transcript of the Docket. We’ll present our analysis of the decision next time.