Firefighting plane damaged: Man in California admits to serious drone flight
During the catastrophic fires in Los Angeles, a man used a drone to take aerial photographs and put a fire-fighting aircraft out of action. Now he has to pay.
(Image: Robert V Schwemmer/Shutterstock.com)
In California, a man has pleaded guilty to flying a drone so recklessly in the direction of the fire during the fierce forest fires in Los Angeles in January that it damaged a fire-fighting aircraft. The aircraft therefore had to stop working. This has now been announced by the responsible public prosecutor's office.
The public prosecutor's office added that the 56-year-old could have faced up to a year in prison for the offense. Instead, he has agreed to pay the full repair costs of at least 65,000 US dollars and to perform 150 hours of community service supporting the clean-up work. He is a founder of the game studio Treyarch and ex-president of Skydance Interactive.
Canadian firefighting aircraft damaged
As the prosecution summarizes, the man drove his car into a parking garage in Santa Monica, west of Los Angeles, on January 9. There he started his camera drone and took off in the direction of Pacific Palisades, a nearby district of Los Angeles. A particularly fierce fire was raging there at the time. When the device had covered around two and a half kilometers, he lost sight of it. The drone then collided with a firefighting aircraft and punched a hole measuring around 7 by 14 centimetres. As a result, the aircraft sent from Canada for support had to be repaired and was unable to take off for now.
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Pacific Palisades was particularly badly affected by the forest fires in and around Los Angeles at the beginning of this year, with entire streets in the district being completely burnt down. The defendant had acted recklessly with his drone, and the damage to the aircraft clearly demonstrates the risk associated with drone operations in the event of a disaster, according to the FBI. “A lack of common sense and ignorance” would not protect against penalties. According to the report, temporary flight restrictions were in place at the time of the incident, and the man's lawyers told the Hollywood Reporter that the drone's geofencing was not working properly.
(mho)
