Man pleads guilty to crashing drone into firefighting plane

ktla ^ | 01/31/2025 | : Tony Kurzweil

[BenLurkin]

Peter Tripp Akemann admitted to “illegal conduct in flying the drone that posed an imminent safety hazard to the Super Scooper crew,” the DOJ stated in a news release.

The collision damaged the wing of the SuperScooper Quebec 1 on Jan. 9, forcing it to be taken out of service two days after the fire erupted.

Investigators determined that while the wildfire was burning in and around Pacific Palisades, Akemann drove to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and launched his drone from the top floor of the parking structure to observe damage caused by the fire.

With federal prosecutors filing the offense as a misdemeanor, Akemann could face up to one year in federal prison.

“As part of the plea agreement, Akemann agreed to pay full restitution to the Government of Quebec, which supplied the plane, and an aircraft repair company that repaired the plane,” the DOJ stated. The costs to repair the plane were at least $65,000, according to the release.

[Red Badger]

Stupido!.............

[Red Badger]

[Telepathic Intruder]

$65,000 is less than Biden paid a single illegal to sneak into America.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Good! I’m glad they nailed his butt.

[lee martell]

$65K in fines, plus community service, as a consequence of playing with his new toy. I am guessing his drone was found near the scene and somehow traced back to the owner.

[ptsal]

bkmk

[FreedomPoster]

Totally.

And in a sane world they’d have found a piece of sheet aluminum, formed it over the leading edge divot this moron caused, affixed it with some hi-speed aluminum tape, and gone back into service.

[electricjack]

Two days to install hi-speed tape??????? Are you kidding me? I have personally put tape on aircraft, and they flew out 30 minutes later, typical airline mechanic time. It must have been a government operation. Two days—what a joke. By the way, they did not use hi-speed tape; they used duct tape. I saw pictures of the repair. Having worked 19 years for a major airline, I do know the difference.

[Ronald77]

Not enough, he put the lives of the crew in jeopardy. Long jail time is needed.

[protoconservative]

Took 3 days to fly in the guy and the pop rivit tool, hour 45 minutes drilling out the rivits to remove the pannel, 2 hours with the sheet metal brake and the whole punch to copy the pannel, another 2 days to get the correct rivits with the paperwork saying they were for aircraft, and one day for the vinal wrap to cover the patch in lue of paint. Could it have flow with 200mph tape, certainly, but the pilots wives deserve a better than average fix.

Something a 19 year old did in the blowing sand of Africa in 1943 with sheers and a hand powered rivit gun at 3am under light from a flashlight and a paintbrush all on a 20 foot ladder on a B-26 with about the same wing. you can fix aircraft in wartime conditions 12 times faster than civilians involved if no epoxy is involved.

[FreedomPoster]

It’s worse than that. Two days into the event, this happened, and they completely grounded the aircraft until full repairs could be made. WWII ground crew would be horrified, sickened at the namby-pambyness of it all.

[mowowie]

It’s funny how the fed gov can find a guy like this in no time but are absolutely clueless with easier crimes.
Weird...

For instance how about a detailed list of every commercial drone flown over NJ last month...

Should be easy enough..

[Drew68]

and somehow traced back to the owner.

Probably downloaded an app when he bought the drone, scanned the QR code on the instruction manual, and entered all of his personal information.

Most people don't think twice about doing this.

[Drew68]

It’s funny how the fed gov can find a guy like this in no time but are absolutely clueless with easier crimes. Weird...

See my post above this one.

A typical drone requires a smart phone to use and most people are just going to enter their actual true information when they download the required app, and not bother using a fake anon account.

I'd guess most drone hobbyists aren't planning on using their drones for any nefarious activities.

[Texas resident]

It’s funny how the fed gov can find a guy like this in no time but are absolutely clueless about Chinese military aged men who have crossed our southern border.

[verum ago]

I am guessing his drone was found near the scene and somehow traced back to the owner.

It was even easier than that; they didn't have to look for the drone at all: it passed through the skin on the leading edge but then was stopped by a structural member and came to rest inside the airplane's wing. They found it as soon as they removed the damaged leading edge panel. From there just a matter of matching the serial number to sales records.

I bet they had the mutt ID'd within an hour of the repair being initiated.

[verum ago]

A typical drone requires a smart phone to use and most people are just going to enter their actual true information when they download the required app, and not bother using a fake anon account.

There's no need in this particular case to speculate about accounts and registration or Remote ID broadcast etc. And as a further note, the drone in question does not require a smartphone for control, though it is an option.

In this case, the important part is that the drone in question physically ended up retained inside the Super Scooper's wing, so when they removed the damaged leading edge they found the thing. All DJI products have unique serial numbers. So once they found it, it was just a matter of matching the serial number to sales records. And you can bet that if the original owner had resold it that they'd be bending over backward to provide any info they have on the new owner in an investigation like this. In any case, all an investigation like this really needs is some sort of unique identifier as a starting point, and in this case the the starting point had the courtesy to remain trapped within the Super Scooper's wing for easy recovery...