Preventing Disruptions at Changi Airport Caused by Drones

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Transport what measures are in place to prevent or stop drones from operating in the vicinity of our airports and affecting flight operations and schedules.

Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked the Minister for Transport what are the measures to ensure that flying drones does not disrupt the air traffic around Changi Airport.

Mr Speaker, we encourage safe and responsible use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) because of their potential benefits. At the same time, we recognise the need to address safety and security concerns that could arise from errant and irresponsible use of UAS.

UAS are prohibited from flying within five kilometres of any airport in Singapore without a permit. Law enforcement officers also conduct regular surveillance patrols around the airport and respond to sightings of unauthorised UAS. Over the past three years, there were eight reports of unauthorised UAS within five kilometres of Changi Airport. None of these cases involved intrusions into Changi Airport.

We have countermeasures to deal with safety and security threats posed by UAS. These efforts are coordinated with the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). However, due to security considerations, it would not be appropriate for me to go into the details. We will continue to monitor developments globally and collaborate with foreign counterparts and industry partners to study and implement additional measures when required.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Senior Minister of State for his response. Learning from the Gatwick Airport incident, I think there were two issues, and I would like to pose two supplementary questions.

Firstly, how can perpetrators be easily identified? Secondly, what anti-drone technology can the authorities deploy to track the drone signals? And how can they disrupt the operation of rogue drones?

I would like to thank Ms Foo for those supplementary questions. They are very pertinent to the safety and the security of our aerodromes. First of all, I would like to state that the enforcement agencies have been building up our capability to counter safety and security threats posed by UAS. This includes the ability to detect and identify UAS to locate its operator as well as the capability to take down the aircraft safely. To enforce the restriction of flying of UAS, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) has engaged the Auxiliary Police to conduct regular surveillance patrols around Changi as well as Seletar airports. Of course, the Auxiliary Police Officers would also be activated to respond if air traffic controller or pilots of aircraft report sightings of such activities.

With regard to the Member's supplementary question on the efforts to neutralise rogue UAS, CAAS' approach is to consider both cooperative as well as uncooperative UAS. For cooperative UAS, we intend to develop a centralised flight management system that will actually provide an island-wide situational picture of UAS activities through tracking solutions, and this will allow us to zoom in on individual UAS, check if they are operating under valid permits, as well as to issue alerts to operators if they are found to be contravening regulations.

As for uncooperative UAS, CAAS actually collaborates with Changi Airport Group, Defence Science and Technology Agency, MINDEF as well as MHA to neutralise either by forcing down or destroying rogue UAS swiftly, but such counter UAS technology or solutions are classified and, for security reasons, I am afraid I would not be able to go into the details on it.