DJI tallies drone saves
The world’s leading consumer drone manufacturer has counted at least 59 lives saved by drones, and DJI suggests there have been many more as it makes a case against restrictions.
The report released March 14 by DJI is based on media reports published in various countries detailing 18 incidents dating from May 2013 through February. The cover photo, taken in China, shows a DJI phantom lowering a small bag of supplies to people stranded on a pile of debris nearly engulfed by raging flood waters in May 2016 in Longsheng County, China. (The report includes links to each media story, and Google’s translation function comes in handy.)
Civilians who happened to be at the right place with the right drone accounted for a third of the people rescued in the DJI survey, and the rate of credited saves is increasing.
“As drones have become more widely used by public safety agencies as well as individuals, the rate of lifesaving drone work now averages almost once per week,” the company stated in a March 14 news release.
DJI said the cases in the report were chosen carefully, “selecting only those in which media accounts clearly demonstrated that people in imminent peril were directly located, assisted and/or rescued with drones.” The tally, DJI said, therefore excludes “many other reported incidents in which drones indirectly helped save lives.”
In boldface type, the company makes a case to regulators around the world that the benefits of drones must be considered along with “reported, and often sensationalized, safety concerns.”
“Regulations that make it more challenging or burdensome to use drone technology as tools to help save lives represent a net detriment to public safety,” the report states.
