The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced on Oct. 30 that it would be grounding all drones in its fleet manufactured in China, or those made with Chinese parts, while the department conducts a review of its drone program.
The department, which manages federal land and resources, uses drones for a variety of purposes from emergency response to natural disasters to geographical and wildlife surveys. It has a fleet of more than 600 drones which conducted more than 10,000 flights in 2018, according to a July report on the department’s drone usage (pdf). It is not known how many of these drones are manufactured in China.
