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LOS ANGELES (CN) — A Los Angeles County man was sentenced to two weeks in prison on Monday after flying a drone over the raging wildfire in the Pacific Palisades in January that collided with a Canadian Super Scooper firefighting airplane.
Peter Akemann, 57, pleaded guilty to one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, a misdemeanor offense that carries a sentence of up to one year in jail. U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald also ordered him to pay a $9,500 fine and $147,000 in restitution to cover the repairs of the Quebec Air Service airplane and the rent LA County paid Quebec for it while the plane was grounded for four days.
The judge, a Barack Obama appointee, rejected the request by Akemann, a computer game developer with a Ph.D. in mathematics, to be given no prison time. His reckless act could have downed the airplane, the judge said, and the need for general deterrence required a custodial sentence.
“For most misdemeanors, the government wouldn’t be asking for any time in custody,” Fitzgerald said. “But this isn’t most misdemeanors.”
Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles had asked for 30 days in prison.
“If the drone had struck a more critical part of the aircraft — such as the engines or cockpit windshield — the outcome could have been devastating, potentially resulting in a fatal crash not only for the crew but also for those on the ground,” the general manager of Quebec’s Air Service said in a victim impact statement. “We operate in high-stakes environments, but this was an entirely avoidable danger, and it has added an element of distrust and fear to our missions.”
In his plea agreement, Akemann said that on Jan. 9, while a massive firestorm was sweeping through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, he launched a drone from the roof of a parking structure in nearby Santa Monica to observe the destruction.
He flew the drone about 1 1/2 miles toward the fire, and after he lost sight of it, the drone collided with the Super Scooper attempting to fight the blaze. The crash caused an approximately 3-by-6-inch hole in the left wing, and the aircraft had to be taken out of service for repairs.
At the time of the collision, the Federal Aviation Administration had issued temporary flight restrictions that prohibited drone operations near the LA County wildfires.
“It was a grave lack in judgment to fly a drone that day,” Akemann told the judge. “I’m filled with grief for the harm that I caused.”
While his attorney Vicki Podberesky argued Akemann immediately accepted responsibility when he knew his drone had hit the Super Scooper — an amphibious aircraft that can scoop up as much as 1,600 gallons from a nearby water source to drop over a wildfire — U.S. Assistant Attorney Kedar Bhatia pointed out that it wasn’t until after the FBI had searched his home that he admitted it was his drone.
“He didn’t report himself or turn himself in,” the prosecutor said. “Once he got caught, he pleaded guilty.”
Podberesky, however, argued that her client had no idea that it was his drone that had struck the aircraft because he had lost sight of it after he had launched it and assumed it had petered out or hit a tree.
Akemann, she said, only wanted to see if a friend’s house in the Pacific Palisades had been destroyed by the fire, a decision he has acknowledged to be reckless and stupid.
“Dr. Akemann,” the lawyer pleaded with the judge, “is now the man who flew the drone that hit the Super Scooper. That is going to be his legacy.”
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