No, no. There are some circumstances in which the vehicle owner would be the one in the wrong/responsible… but the fact we don’t hear about that regularly would, given the number of shared/lease/hire cars on the road, suggest it’s pretty rare. In the main, if there’s an accident/collision/crash/offence committed then the driver of one of the vehicles involved is responsible*.
I’d imagine (have there been any test cases?) the same is going to be true of drones under the registration scheme. 99% of the time, the operator and pilot will be one and the same, but where not the operator will be responsible for identifying the pilot, who will be responsible for their actions whilst flying.
Where I can see the difference between drones and cars is the degree of regulation/testing makes it much less likely your car is going to fail due to a design/software issue**. Drones seem more susceptible to firmware issues and the consequences are pretty catastrophic. Assuming there aren’t existing safety notices, the operator has maintained the firmware and the pilot is sticking to the drone code then they’ve mitigated the risks as much they can (and are required to), so the ‘blame’ would then go up the chain to the manufacturer.
(*I’m not a fan of the idea that there are ‘no-fault accidents’ … either somebody has driven beyond their skill, disregarded/misjudged conditions, or they haven’t been paying sufficient attention. The rare event of mechanical problems causing accidents must either be poor maintenance or poor build/design. No such thing as an ‘Act of God’, IMHO)
(**Of course, all that’s going to change as self-driving cars become more popular. There have already been fatalities in the US where autonomous cars have run over and killed pedestrians due to software glitches - or more accurately, the decision making routines ignoring ‘jay walkers’ because that’s what they were programmed to do. At the moment, that’s still the driver’s responsibility because they are supposed to be alert and ready to override the vehicle, but that requirement won’t last forever)