The Aviation Police Bureau yesterday said that it is seeking the owner of a drone that fell on the runway at the Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) last month, with the person potentially facing a penalty of up to NT$1.5 million (US$48,030) under the Civil Aviation Act (民用航空法).
“We are collecting the fingerprints left on the drone, which has yet to produce results,” Taipei branch Deputy Director Hsu Yuan-pei (許源培) said.
According to the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), the drone was found at 3:50pm on June 21, when the staff at Songshan airport were conducting a routine inspection of the runway.
The drone was largely intact, with only a small amount of wreckage found on the runway, the administration said.
The drone had a camera and a sticker — “Sektor 9,” a skateboard brand — it said, adding that all the evidence had been turned over to the bureau for further investigation.
The bureau said that the photographs on the camera’s memory card were of Go Skateboarding Day, which was held near the airport on the same day.
Both the Chinese Taipei Extreme Sports Association, which hosted the event, and the Taipei City Government Department of Sports, which served as an adviser, denied hiring a drone to take photographs.
A FreeX Quadcopter comapny representative was quoted by the Chinese-language Apple Daily as saying the drone was equipped with GPS, which has the locations of all the airports in the world. It cannot take off if it is within 2.4km of any airport, he said.
The rules of enforcement stipulated by the Civil Aviation Act list drones or remotely controlled aircraft as among the objects that can affect civil aviation safety, along with kites, sky lanterns, fire rockets, hot air balloons or any other floating or moving objects.
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