This guy should have appealed. I once did that with an accusation that I committed an infraction with unemployment insurance. I thought the same thing about lawyers and expenses but had nothing to lose by sending in the appeal. It worked, to my surprise. It would have been worth trying in this case. Simple lesson learned for all of us here: Never assume defeat at the start.
When you fly in the city with a drone you need a flight plan (analyze the terrain in 3D google maps from all angles, you must know very well the area), a plan of emergency situations when losing the signal, to have direct visual contact with the drone and as close as possible to you. You can't fly blindly. It is forbidden to use cameras in the airport area, but flying with a drone is already too much
You also MUST check which airspace you're flying in before taking flight. Class B, C, and D airspace (and class A as well, but most people aren't getting up to 18,000' msl) are prohibited from flying in, and the Las Vegas strip would most certainly be encompassed by one of these restricted airpaces.
I dont register mine, why do it? So i can be screwed by the govenment? Thousand dollar drone, or a 15 k fine. Fuck the drone i would say😅. Wouldnt recover it, but wouldnt be fined either
The FAA uses news broadcasts and RU-vid videos to find violators. Even worse, the guy in this video admitted to making "100's" of flights, but were they legal? My guess is that he is not FAA certified to operate a drone or he would know better. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. Just think, if his drone landed on a runway, it could have damaged a commerial airliner, brought it down or made it return to the airport. This is serious and he deserved to be fined. He's lucky he didn't face crinimal charges, which the FAA has the power to enforce. Let this be a lesson to all, you cannot go out and just fly your drone wherever and whenever you want. Be safe, become FAA certified to operate your drone and follow the regulations.
The FAA actually had proof that he had made hundreds of similar illegal flights. The serial number of his drone was found in the databases of the Aeroscope/Aerial Armor systems in use at major airports all over the country, showing his drone flying illegally in close proximity to those airports.
His first major mistake was flying in a very busy town over people, which he would almost certainly never ever get permission to do. It is this kind of irresponsible behavior that gives the responsible drone pilots a bad name and makes drones appear a meanness in the public eye.
I agree but the real problem is the yet another DJI flight controller took control from the pilot. The have a long history of these mysterious flights. I myself have experienced this type of thing back in the day when you bought the flight controller and then built your own aircraft. If the craft was performing correctly and there was a loss of signal between the hand held controller and the aircraft it should have done and automatic return to home but it didn't.
Landing a drone at airport. OMG that's bad news. I am drone pilot since 4 years, registered my drone, and travelling to Vegas again with drone,. BUT NOT ON THE STRIP. THERE ARE 100'S ONLINE, WHY ADD MORE
Oh my god that is a worst case scenario. I do feel bad for this guy. I think the FAA is trying to make an example out of him unfortunately. However not understanding the airspace before you take off is incredibly stupid. "flying over busy streets and sidewalks." That's a bogus charge. Looked very empty to me. It doesn't look like he had control of the drone at all, so I'm not sure how he "flew it carelessly and recklessly" besides not understanding the airspace. DJI failed him or he was asleep at the sticks, doing something totally wrong. (Relying on RTH with shitty GPS or Compass) The drone manufacturer needs to be investigated for this incident as well.
Hello fellow Seattlite. The pilot ruined any right to have pity. Youre absolutely right about this being worst case scenario, my jaw dropped to the floor as soon as I saw the first small jet, then fell another 20ft below ground level when I saw the drone land on the landing strip. Considering the pilot was willing to speak to the news, I figured that he was being responsible for his truly unfortunate flight. But the fact that he was negligently failed to respond to the FAA after they identified and reached out to him with an opportunity to appeal I was from being shocked to being angry at him. Unless Fox ommitted that there was a mail delivery failure? The pilot deserves a damn good book throwing.
How can a Phantom land somewhere else when the pilot lose control? If I lose control with my DJI drone it comes back to the home point. Something's not right with this story.
nonononono....he mentioned he has a DJI Phantom. DJI drones come back to homepoint once they lose connection. No way that it flies 2 miles away from the pilot by itself. The other thig, but I'm not sure about how it's going in the US, but usually all airports around the world are no fly zones, so the drone should stop once it reaches this zone. And either if it changes to ATTI mode, it shouldn't fly avay from the pilot by itself.
Ok, let's assume he cracked the app, opened no fly zones. But that doesn't mean the drone will land 2 miles away from you upon disconnection...that's BS. If you ever flew with any DJI drones you would know that.
I hope you learnt your lesson. Thank you FAA 👌 Ps: when you lose GPS it still flys ATTI , the pilot obviously didn’t know how to actually fly a drone, flew out of VLOS and couldn’t get it back. RTH won’t work if there is a problem with GPS in the drone.
@@joedonbaker1673 The problem with Phantoms is that they don't have manual mode unless you switch to NAZA Mode in the GUI. I aquired a Phantom 2 which I set in NAZA Mode. Haven't flown it in a while now. A few years ago I was flying a 550 drone with NAZA M V2 FC. Once and only once at the club I had it fly off at high speed into a Maple tree. I had time to switched into ATT mode but made no difference. After that scary incident I contacted the outfit I purchased the FC from to find out if there is anything i can do in a situation like that. They told me to switch into manual mode then back to attitude which will clear the memory of the glitchy code. I frequently switch to manual mode but back to att just to be safe.
James Hatton manual or ATTI is automatically initiated when GPS is lost, there is no need to switch to ATTI unlike the inspires that have a dedicated flight mode button. Altitude hold remains in all flight conditions and opti mode without gps and close to the ground. There is no excuse for ignorance! Unless there was a catastrophic failure of an esc, motor or power.
@@jahatton ATTI is the only manual flight mode on the DJI consumer drones. IF you are referring to "Manual" without Alt Hold or Aided postponing than this isn't the drone to be talking about manual its a Phantom 3, loss of GPS will revert to ATTI which needs to be piloted manually with only altitude hold being the pilot assistance, unless the barometer also fails than its completely manual as you would on a non assisted drone like FPV racers and DIY drones.
🤔🤔🤔 GUARANTEE they seen the drone, disrupted his signal, then when the drone lost control they blamed it on the pilot. When these drones get multiple satellite locks on them, they dont just "go out of control". Suspicious to say the least.
GPS works most of the time but I have found it to fail even in a country setting were it had worked just fine on many flights before . I have noted it to fail near a military base in the panhandle using google maps to fine a hotel. it put the hotel in the ocean were it was across the street. Luckily on one flight GPS hung my drone stationary for ever but the home button brought it back . GOODLUCK POSITIONING SATELLITES .
As owner he responsible. I wonder if he would have felt better if it ended up in the engine of either a departing or arriving flight. $15K seems a bit low.
@@Max.527 He shouldn't have been flying where he was flying. He even admitted i t. First you're not supposed to fly it over people which he was doing. As it drifted away, it increased in the danger it imposed and the violations it was breaking. It all started when he decided to fly it in the wrong place.
@@Max.527 so would it have been better if he would have taken out a sight seeing helicopter with only 6 people on it. The drones aren't the issue it is the uneducated owners. Prior to this RC airplanes and helicopters took a bit of skill to fly and take videos and pictures. Now any window licker with a couple of hundred bucks can do it. There needs to be some sort of licensing to own/fly one of these
"I was very apologetic to them...." Oh, that's good to know. Unbelievable. Do we know if he was a 107 certified pilot? No one mentioned that in the article. The drone was registered so it's likely he is. If he is a 107 pilot, then this is inexcusable. He wasn't within radius of a tall building so he was over max elevation for his drone at 450 feet. McCarron is well within 5 miles of the strip so he never would have gotten LAANC clearance for max elevation. I don't know if the Phantom 3 has to be unlocked like the P4 but that shouldn't have happened either. Many, many things wrong with this guy's flight and he should be fined TO THE MAX. It's hard to believe that a 107 certified pilot would have attempted this flight. This is something that the cowboys usually do with an unregistered drone so they don't get caught if something goes wrong. This guy is bad, bad news. On top of everything he has a flippant attitude toward the whole situation.
I agree with every word you said with one small exception. Registration doesn't mean he's Part 107. Every drone over 0.55 pounds must be registered, whether you're Part 107 or not. The only difference is that Part 107 pilots must have a separate registration for each drone while recreational pilots have one registration that applies to every drone they have. Overall great comment, though.
His ignorance of the airspace is inexcusable. Like you said, LAANC is a zero-grid over the strip because of it's proximity to KLAS. The flight should have never left the ground. I think the flying over people charge is BS though, the footage shows empty streets. I think DJI needs to be investigated for this as well. It looked like he had no control of that drone at all, or he fell asleep at the sticks.
That was his fault as a drone operator he should have had eye sight of his aircraft he flew it 2 miles away from the home point of course your gonna lose the signal ffs 🤦🏻♂️
$15 K is not enough. He broke every possible rule. It's illegal to fly a drone anywhere near the Strip. It's illegal to fly within 5 miles of an airport. He was well within 5 miles of McCarran. It's illegal to fly above 400 feet. He flew at 450 feet ....... right by the airport. It's illegal to fly over any people who are not directly involved in the safe operation of the drone, and he flew over the most densely packed group of people within 250 miles. You are required to maintain visual line of sight of the drone with the naked eye at all times, and he flew it right out of his view, at 450 feet, near the airport, over people. And of course, the FAA registration number must be permanently visible on the drone. It was no accident that he transposed numbers in the registration number on the drone. He knew damn well that he was flying illegally and he figured that putting the wrong number on the drone would let him escape scot-free. Nope. And then he ignored the FAA for months when they tried to contact him. He got off easy. Oh, by the way, DJI drones are geofenced. They have built in flight restrictions. If you are in a no fly zone (and he was in multiple overlapping no fly zones), a DJI drone will not even take off. However, the particular model he flew had a vulnerability which allows a hack which disables the geofencing (I'm not going to say explicitly what the hack is because I don't want to enable that kind of behavior). If, as he says, he had made flights in that area before, then he clearly had used that hack to disable the DJI geofencing. This was as premeditated and inexcusable a case of reckless flying as I can imagine.
@@samfreedentertainment75 It's not that simple. It's not just a simple case where all restricted areas are treated the same for unlocking purposes. DJI has different, specific procedures for different restricted areas depending on the level of risk that a flight would pose. The area from which he took off is classified in the DJI FlySafe database as a Regulatory Restricted Zone. Their protocol for such an area is that "Due to local regulations and policies, flights are prohibited within the scope of some special areas." In other words, the drone cannot be unlocked for a flight in this area Beyond that, he was lying his butt off when he told the reporters that he was just a tourist trying to get a picture, and nothing like this had ever happened to him before. What he clearly didn't realize is that the Aeroscope/Aerial Armor software which is used at major airports all over the US to track drone activity , had captured his information for this flight, AND historic information for past flights. A DJI drone is constantly broadcasting information specific to the drone including the serial number. (You can't turn that off). When a drone is detected in the restricted airspace, that information is stored in databases. When the FAA investigated, they found his drone's serial number in such databases all over the country, showing that he had flown literally hundreds of flights within restricted airspace in very close proximity to airports, without ever getting proper authorizations.
@@ednafronkelbarger8601 ok relax. all I was replying to was the comment above saying it's illegal to fly near the strip and within 5 miles of the airport. I've done both of those with authorization through the FAA. I wasn't defending the guy in the video. He was 100% in the wrong and it's idiots like this who make it worse for the rest of us.
government ruins the hobby. Anyone who tries to write it off as an individuals ruining it for the rest is simply failing to believe in personal responsibility itself. Nobody should have to worry or be punished for something they themselves they haven't done. Besides, if he actually did harm anyone, we have something called court for that. But all this "pre crime" minority report crap is going to enslave you.
@@leifvejby8023 What does a story on drones have to do with politics 🤔 You are definitely unhinged. Are you off your meds? You probably should go to your "group" and the doctor because I'm getting the impression that you are not only completely unstable and a danger to yourself and society...... PLEASE GET SOME PROFESSIONAL HELP!!!!
@@vitron01 Since you obviously are against law and order it is quite logical to connect you to other criminals - does your probation officer know where you are and what you are doing?
@@geezerpleasers_OG thank god you people are on your way out. You already ruined this planet with fines and late fees and the dmv. Now the masculine alpha males are gonna have abolish it.
@@miltechmoto Try the decaf. Seriously, "you people ruined the planet with the dmv" may be the most hysterically funny "insult" posted on RU-vid this year.
@@geezerpleasers_OG well it's true, what wrong with you people, why would you ever want to worry about late fees for the government of things? They already made the currency worth nothing. Nobody was harmed? You really want to have to worry about the FAA getting its cut instead of actual harm to other people? In this case the owner of the drone is the only person who lost.
