Immediately after the occurance of an oil and gas pipeline incident, it is necessary to understand the actual site situations, grasp the surrounding environment information, and establish emergency communication in a timely manner. However, the complex geographical environment along the pipeline route, the extreme difficulty in locating the incident site and disposition of the situation, inconvenient road access and the poor communication infrastructure at the site have imposed major limitation to the emergency repair work. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has the ability of high altitude, long flight distance, high speed and can operate independently. By carrying different equipment and equipped with different technologies, UAV can be used to assess pipeline leakage, fire and explosion, oil spill and other incidents, and assist in implementing emergency repair operations. By analyzing the characteristics of various UAV technologies and combining the current UAV application experience at home and abroad, the achievable functions of UAV technology in oil and gas pipeline emergency were defined focusing on the oil and gas pipeline emergency response. UAV based emergency response system was developed based on the aspects of remote image transmission and image synthesis. The study results presented in this paper will help enterprises to enhance their emergency response and management, emergency repair and decision-making capabilities.