To add extra reassurance, the FAA officially provides an incentive to encourage self-reporting. In effect, the agency offers a “get out of jail free” card for unintentional rule violations such as accidentally straying above 400 ft above ground level without a waiver, or into controlled airspace without an authorization. There are some constraints: an operator only gets one “get out of jail free” card every five years, and the report must be filed within 10 days of the violation. That said, the policy reflects the FAA’s understanding that human error happens, and that the resulting learning opportunities benefit the aviation community.

The FAA in general takes a lenient view of pilots who self-report violations, seeing a willingness to do so as evidence of a “constructive attitude which will tend to prevent future violations.” Again, improved safety rather than penalization is the goal. 

Why should operators of unmanned aircraft utilize the ASRS? The reasons are simple: for our industry to develop, we must be able to self-regulate, and the ASRS has proved to be an effective tool for doing so. Since it was established more than 45 years ago, NASA has collected more than 1.7 million safety reports, enabling it to analyze a wide variety of hazardous occurrences and provide guidance that can help other pilots from making similar errors. It’s an endeavor that pilots themselves appreciate: as the saying goes, “learn from other people’s mistakes—you don’t have time to make them all on your own.”