[Suresh Patel]

In the past few months, dozens of near-misses have occurred between drones and planes, including several at airports in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. There’s even a scary new term—“flyaways”— to describe drones that escape their operators’ control and crash because of software glitches, wind gusts, or operator error. Many flyaways end with the drones smashing into buildings or trees.

Twenty states already regulate drones. New federal rules are expected to require operators to have a license, and to fly drones only during daylight hours, below 400 feet, and within their sight.

“It’s kind of like the early days of the automobile, with people speeding and not knowing what they were doing,” says Arthur Holland Michel of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York. “Everyone is holding their breath that there won’t be a horrendous incident like a drone getting sucked into the engine of a jet.”

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