Safety Review of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations

The utility of small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUAS) has been well established. For example, sUAS operations captured in this research include surveying and photography, policing, firefighting, agricultural spraying, search and rescue, and many others. These operations represent many legacy areas in general aviation. In fact, many of the future applications of autonomous or remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) will encompass even more, such as aeromedical, heavy lift, and even low-capacity transport with urban air mobility (UAM). To that end, it is essential that safety in the industry be regularly and continuously reviewed. In this research we present a review of the current data set of RPAS safety occurrences (accidents and incidents) in the Australian Transport Safety Board dataset, from May 2008 to July 2021, consisting of 429 cases. These are analyzed in terms of their key categorical properties; specifically, occurrence type, occurrence category, type of operation, and phase of flight. Findings show that accidents account for over 75% of occurrences, likely indicating the under reporting of incidents. Collisions with terrain accounted for almost 90% of occurrences, and similarly 90% of occurrences occurred during maneuvering and not during critical phases of flight like crewed occurrences.