US to require drone registration amid wide-ranging safety concerns

FAA chief cites 'troubling trend' of close calls with pilots and wildfire-fighting operations in creating taskforce to determine regulation of private drones

Hobbyist drone owners have flown too close to the fire for the last time: the US government announced this morning that it would require some publicly available drone aircraft to be registered to their owners, a move prompted by the growing number of reported close calls and incidents that pose safety risks, officials announced Monday.

The goal, said transportation secretary Anthony Foxx, was to identify exactly who was using what drone, and where. "Finding the drone has not been as much of a problem as finding the person who was using the drone," said Foxx.