Days af­ter a com­mer­cial flight was al­most hit by a drone while prepar­ing to land at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says the laws sur­round­ing drones may need to be stricter.

On Wednes­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (TTCAA) re­vealed by way of a me­dia re­lease that on De­cem­ber 8 there was an in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a drone and a com­mer­cial flight at 3,500 feet.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease, the drone passed with­in 20 me­tres of the air­craft’s left wingtip to the south of Port-of-Spain. The in­ci­dent is cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. 

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the in­ci­dent on Thurs­day while at the air­port for the launch of LI­AT20 ser­vice to this coun­try, Sinanan did not re­veal which air­craft or air­line com­pa­ny was in­volved in the in­ci­dent but said that the min­istry is tak­ing the in­ci­dent “very se­ri­ous­ly.”

He said he has re­quest­ed a re­port from TTCAA. De­pend­ing on what the re­port re­veals, he said the laws may be ad­just­ed.

He said, “If we have to, we will, be­cause we do have rules and reg­u­la­tions that gov­ern them. And if it means that we have to re­vis­it it, we will def­i­nite­ly be do­ing that but it is some­thing that we are not go­ing to be tak­ing light­ly.” 

The TTCAA has called the in­ci­dent “reck­less” and a “very se­ri­ous threat” to the air­craft’s safe­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the law, drones (al­so known as un­manned air­craft sys­tems) are pro­hib­it­ed from be­ing flown above 400 feet. Cat­e­go­ry One drones are fur­ther re­strict­ed to fly­ing at a max­i­mum height of 100 feet.

Drone pi­lots can be fined $350,000 and im­pris­oned for five years if they dis­rupt or en­dan­ger civ­il avi­a­tion or any pub­lic or pri­vate prop­er­ty.