EASA HQ COLOGNE, 5th June 2024, Joint European Drone Association (JEDA) President Julie Garland and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Executive Director Florian Guillermet signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) to collaborate on UAS operations to foster the development of a safe and secure UAS market in the EASA Member States.
Since the applicability date in 2020 of Regulation (EU) 2019/947, numerous unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations have been conducted across both open and specific categories. However, a comprehensive overview detailing the number and types of UAS operations conducted, accumulated flight hours, and failures is missing. Moreover, the development of safety culture in the EU drone industry needs to be encouraged. JEDA, being the largest and only umbrella organization for the national associations of unmanned aviation in Europe, having national associations from 20 + European states and counting 3000 + members involved as operators, remote pilots, manufacturers, and service providers, is well positioned to fill the gap of the lack of data concern and support in the safety promotion. The data provided by JEDA will support EASA in effectively evaluating the efficacy and proportionality of the EU UAS regulation. Collecting this information to enhance safety standards and regulatory effectiveness is imperative.
Under the Memorandum of Cooperation, JEDA will support EASA in developing an unmanned aircraft function to facilitate compiling, collecting, and sending data in case of accidents and incidents.
EASA Executive Director Florian Guillermet commented: “Collecting data in a structured way is instrumental for assessing the effectiveness of the European drone regulation. We need to work together to build a safe drone market by ensuring a strong safety culture is underpinning this young industry as it grows and matures.”
JEDA President Julie Garland commented, “We are delighted to be joining forces with EASA to work on this common topic that is central to the future development of the European drone ecosystem. Through this cooperation, we will pool our expertise to help EASA assess the effectiveness and proportionality of the EU UAS regulation and establish exposure data for safety performance assessment in Europe concerning the UAS domain and to build and foster a Just Culture with Drone Operators.”