BRENT PIN­HEIRO

Pro­duc­er

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

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 & To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (TTCAA) re­vealed by way of a press re­lease that on De­cem­ber 8, 2024, there was an in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a drone and a com­mer­cial flight at 3,500 feet.

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

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al, Min­is­ter Sinanan did not re­veal which air­craft or air­line com­pa­ny was in­volved in the in­ci­dent, but he did say that the Min­istry is tak­ing the in­ci­dent “very se­ri­ous­ly”.

He told Guardian Me­dia that he has re­quest­ed a re­port from TTCAA, and de­pend­ing on what the re­port re­veals, the laws con­cern­ing drones us­age may be ad­just­ed.

“If we have to, we will,” he said, “be­cause we do have rules and reg­u­la­tions that gov­ern them. And if it means that we must 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 air­craft safe­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the law, drones—al­so known as un­manned air­craft sys­tems—are pro­hib­it­ed from be­ing flown above 400 feet. Cat­e­go­ry 1 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.