• Drone Operator Faces Federal Charges In Police Helicopter Collision

    From Larry Dighera@21:1/5 to All on Mon Nov 23 10:42:52 2020
    https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/drone-operator-faces-federal-charges-in-police-helicopter-collision/

    Drone Operator Faces Federal Charges In Police Helicopter Collision

    Russ Niles
    November 21, 20204

    https://s30121.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/drone-crash-into-LAPD-chopper-Hernandez-with-drone-controller-PHOTO.png

    A 22-year-old drone operator who wanted to “see what was going on”
    could face a one-year jail term after his aircraft hit a Los Angeles
    Police Department helicopter Sept. 18. According to Fox News, Andrew
    Rene Hernandez’s drone hit the fuselage of the chopper, prompting an
    emergency landing but no injuries. It’s not clear if the aircraft was
    damaged but a car was hit by the falling drone. Police recovered the
    wreckage and checked the video card, which had nice clear images of
    the owner. He was arrested by the FBI last Thursday and charged with
    one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, a federal
    misdemeanor offense with a maximum one-year sentence. There was no
    suggestion the collision was intentional.

    The helicopter was responding to a call from officers on the ground investigating the burglary of a drug store when the incident occurred.
    Federal officers told the court the incident could have been much
    worse. “If the drone had struck the helicopter’s main rotor instead of
    the fuselage, it could have brought the helicopter down,” according to
    the complaint. Hernandez admitted to flying the drone.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)