Cambodia, regulating an unregulated market

This eventually had to happen one day, Cambodia is currently looking at setting up some ground rules to fly a drone within its territory according to Mr. Sin Chan Sereivutha, Spokesperson of the State Secretariat of Cambodian Civil Aviation (15/03/19).

Today the country, remains one of the last ones without any specific rules within South East Asia. Whilst there are clearly geo no fly zones established such as the famous Angkor Wat or the capital city of Phnom Penh, there are little other measures in forced such as maximum flight altitude or unmanned aircraft weight.

A few years ago, a German tourist flew over the Royal Palace and crashed his drone into the Palace's courtyard scaring off the princess. Lucky for him, he didn't end up in jail as he didn't harm anyone and it wasn't clearly forbidded by then.. So he went off by writing an apology to the King and his family. A few month later, the scenario repeated itself with a Taiwanese traveller this time.

These events forced the quick establishment of no fly zones within the country & started the process of regulating other areas of the country. But being one of the last doesn't always mean the worse.. We can hope that the Cambodian Civil Aviation Authority will be able to feed itself from its neighbourgh's best practices and draft a comprehensive, yet manageable policy for local police force & drone pilots.

With little rules available, police on sight will act as what they consider best in a given situation. We've experienced it over Koh-Ker temple when despite askig for authorisation got arrested and asked to deleted all images and videos obtained during the flight session.

With drone regulations around the corner, you might wanna re-think your timing to visit the country as we never know what rules it could end up with. We certainly made the most out ofit & enjoyed one of the best flying sessions in this country..