GM1 Article 6 ‘Certified’ category of UAS operations

UAS OPERATIONS IN THE ‘CERTIFIED’ CATEGORY Article 6 of the UAS Regulation should be read together with Article 40 of Regulation (EU) 2019/945 — Article 6 addresses UAS operations and Article 40 addresses the UAS. This construction was necessary to respect the EU legal order reflected in Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, which foresees that the requirements for UAS operations and registration are in the implementing act, and that the technical requirements for UAS are in the delegated act. The reading of the two articles results in the following:

(a)the transport of people is always in the ‘certified’ category. Indeed, the UAS must be certified in accordance with Article 40 and the transport of people is one of the UAS operations identified in Article 6 as being in the ‘certified’ category;

(b)flying over assemblies of people with a UAS that has a characteristic dimension of less than 3 m may be in the ‘specific’ category unless the risk assessment concludes that it is in the ‘certified’ category; and

(c)the transport of dangerous goods is in the ‘certified’ category if the payload is not in a crash-protected container, such that there is a high risk for third parties in the case of an accident.