The Passenger Safety Question

There is a world of difference between a drone with the lifting capacity to carry a human, and one that can do it safely. An automobile needs more than an engine and wheels to drive legally. It has to meet federal and local safety standards right down to the taillights, turn signals and DOT-approved tires.

The curve is much steeper for air vehicles. To be certified as safe for passengers, an aircraft needs redundant flight controls and propulsion so there is no single point of failure. Passenger seating must be proven to be crashworthy, fire protection be proven, and the control software must be certified safe under all conditions.

Certifying an aircraft takes years and passenger-drone makers like Volocopter, Wisk Aero and EHang have been flying aircraft for a while, but are all racing to jump through the regulatory hoops and provide the first urban air taxi service in the 2026-2028 time frame. Safety standards mean their aircraft have passenger cabins which look like conventional helicopters.

Things are different in Ukraine, where transporting an injured passenger is a matter of life and death. Getting through the “grey zone”, the 10+ miles back from the front line covered by enemy drones, is difficult and dangerous. Few vehicles make it through, and much of the resupply and casualty evacuation is now carried out by wheeled or tracked robots. Some have armored capsules, to protect the passenger from strikes by Russian FPVs.

In this situation safety standards are very different. The question is whether the risk is greater if a critical patient goes on the slow, dangerous ground route or gets airlifted out by drone.

Ukraine’s Casualty Evacuation Drones

"We are already testing aerial platforms for the evacuation of the wounded. This is the future," Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi told RBC-Ukraine in August 2025.

A report in The Economist in 2023 said that Ukraine had already carried out at least one experimental drone casualty evacuation. This was likely using the British-supplied Molloy T150 which could in theory carry a person a short distance. Commercial drones like DJI’s latest FlyCart 100 could also in principle carry a light person, given its capacity of 190 pounds, though of course neither type is certified for passengers.

More powerful lifters are needed. This month Ukrainian developers unveiled a 12-rotor multicopter called Ayudah-12 lifting over 300 pounds and specifically developed to carry wounded soldiers. There are several other similar projects. Heavy drones are also used for logistics, bombing and minelaying.

The Russians have demonstrated endless heavy-lift drones, but few have been seen in field and Russia lacks a drone bomber fleet to match Ukraine’s Vampires and Kazhans. In 2023 the Russian Aerotechnologies LLC tested a giant drone called Perun for cargo transport and carrying a stretcher case, but it seems to have disappeared.

Crucially, such drones are relatively low-cost. The DJI FlyCart 100 has a list price of under $17k, at least an order of magnitude less than passenger drones like the EHang-184.

“Such drones will inevitably appear, since getting a badly wounded soldier to advanced medical care within the ‘Golden Hour’ dramatically increases the survival rate,” Roy Gardiner, Intel Director with the group Defense Tech for Ukraine, told me. “The development of heavy multicopter drones that could rapidly evacuate wounded soldiers by air is an urgent priority and have been reported in development by both sides.”

Evacuation by cargo drone is far from ideal. Helicopter air ambulances always have a medic on board to monitor the patient and keep them stable. But any transport away from the combat zone and to a medical facility could be a life saver.

Ukraine recently evacuated a cat and a dog from the combat zone in a logistics drone. Human evacuees are likely to follow shortly.

Assault Airlift Drones

Assault troops are also in a different category to fare-paying commercial passengers, and may disregard safety norms. In 2007, British Royal Marine Commandos in Afghanistan carried out a rescue mission by strapping themselves to the stub wings of an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.

In a similar spirit, a video from Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-i-Taiba shows a commercial heavy-lift drone ferrying a passenger short distances at a training camp. The group is known for smuggling arms and drugs across the India-Pakistan border. The passenger is dropped into water, suggesting that soft landings may be a challenge. But clearly the potential for short-range transport exists. (Hat tip to Mike Monnilk at DroneSec for reporting this one).

“It’s already a growing concern, something we need to plan for, especially regarding facility and national borders where high walls and other terrain obstacles like rivers and canyons/ditches are viewed as secure physical barriers,” Robert Bunker of C/O Futures told me.

While smaller drones already carry contraband over borders and prison walls, the larger version means that people, including armed terrorists can be transported too.

“These systems can be used for human smuggling, conducting “Smurf runs” back and forth over a secure border wall or obstacle and moving personnel to higher elevations or back down, such as the tops of hills,” says Bunker.

Tactically, Bunker says these drones could act as flying taxis to rapidly shuttle groups of people to locations which would be impossible for them to reach otherwise.

It is notable that the Russian Perun testing also included transport of an assault trooper as well as a casualty (the Ukrainians do not seem to be working in this) The Russians have increasingly shifted to high-speed assaults on motorcycles, quad bikes, golf buggies and ATVs. Drones are faster than any of these, and the multicopter can keep returning to pick up successive assault troopers. Even better from the point of view of the Russian commanders, the passenger may have no control over the drones: retreat is literally not an option.

Some have suggested that helicopter assault is now dead, after the failure of the Russian operation to take Hostomel when helicopters were decimated by portable anti-aircraft missiles. A recent report by thinktank RUSI optimistically suggests that air maneuver is still feasible with proper planning and support.

Drone-enabled air maneuver might change the calculus again. As with casualty evacuation, the calculus is whether being slung precariously under a multicopter at speed is more dangerous than covering the same distance on the ground.

Assault drones may look like a crazy idea, but no crazier than recent Russian attacks on horseback. If the technology is there, somebody will use it.

UPDATE 19th May: New video of tests