Search and rescue (SAR) has been a component of man’s survival since he started living in groups as a cohesive unit. Granted, some in the group were considered expendable and not a second thought was given to their well being or their absence. But there were always those who contributed significantly enough that their absence would trigger a party to go in their last known direction to retrieve them, if gone for longer than expected. It was worthwhile for the group, if that individual’s special skill was returned to contribute to the overall unit’s wellbeing and perhaps their very survival.

This paper documents the emergency deployment of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) UAV assets to address a specific request by a local government in Texas. On Wednesday, 10 September 2014, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted
an Emergency Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (E-COA) to NIST to utilize an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) in the search for a missing person near Plano, Texas, just north of Dallas. The FAA processed this request and granted the Emergency COA in less than 24 hours. This was the first event for which the FAA granted permission for NIST UAVs to be flown for purposes other than fire research.

The most common obstacles to insertion and use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into disaster situations in the national airspace (NAS) are varied and many. Disaster situations, for the purpose of this report, include natural disasters (fire, flood, weather driven emergencies, earthquakes, etc.) and man-made disasters (chemical or other agent spills, transit disasters, infrastructure failure, domestic terrorism, etc.) To clarify, UAS have many monikers, i.e., unmanned aircraft (UA), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), remotely piloted aerial systems (RPAS), or “drones” as commonly referenced by the general public.

On May 27th of 2009 a Continental ExpressJet flight departed Bush International airport in Houston, Texas and began its’ eastbound climb to cruising altitude. At 13,000 feet the pilot saw what he be- lieved to be a rocket arcing over into the path of the commuter airplane. The “rocket” passed an esti- mated 150 feet beneath the aircraft.

The 2015 Texas Memorial Day Floods are now being labeled a “millennial flood”; they surpassed the standard of what would be considered the severest flood that could occur in a 500-year span.