LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man has agreed to plead guilty to unsafely operating a drone that collided with a firefighting aircraft during the deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, Federal authorities said Friday.
Peter Tripp Akemann reached a plea agreement and will avoid prison but he will pay full restitution for the damage on the plane and do 150 hours of community service in wildfire relief, said acting U.S. attorney Joseph McNally. The misdemeanor count Akemann faced carries a sentence of up to a year in prison.
The collision on Jan. 9 caused the firefighting aircraft to be grounded for several days.
Akil Davis, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said there was no evidence Akemann intentionally caused the collision.
“Lack of common sense and ignorance of your duty as a drone pilot will not shield you from criminal charges,” he said.
Officials say the plane was owned by the government of Quebec and that Akemann has agreed to pay $65,000 in repair costs to that government and the company that fixed the aircraft.
Akemann is scheduled to appear in court Friday afternoon.
The wind-driven blaze in the upscale Pacific Palisades began Jan. 7, destroying or damaging nearly 8,000 homes, businesses and other structures and killing at least 12 people.
The conflagration fueled by dry Santa Ana winds has scorched at least 36 square miles (94 square kilometers) of land. It was 98% contained as of Friday.
Authorities say Akemann launched the drone from the top of a parking structure in Santa Monica on Jan. 9 and flew it more than 1.5 miles toward the Palisades Fire before losing site of it. It then crashed with the Super Scooper firefighting plane that was carrying two firefighters.
The pilot was able to land the aircraft despite a hole in the left wing caused by the collision with the drone.
Drone operations were prohibited in the area at the time due to the firefight.
Davis said Los Angeles will host several major events in coming years, including the World Cup, the Super Bowl and the Olympics, and it will be the responsibility of drone operators to know the areas restricted to them.
“The FAA has very strict guidelines about registering drones and where drones can be flown. The onus is on the pilot, if firefighters are putting out a fire with aircraft that should be a clue,” he said.
The fire in the hilly Los Angeles neighborhood, home to Hollywood stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Crystal who lost houses in the fire, forced thousands of people from their homes, and knocked out power to tens of thousands.
Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the fire. Officials have placed the origin of blaze behind a home on Piedra Morada Drive, which sits above a densely wooded arroyo.
Another wind-whipped fire that started the same day in Altadena, a community about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Pacific Palisades, killed at least 17 people and destroyed or damaged more than 10,000 homes and other buildings.
The Santa Ana winds have turned seasonal wildfires into infernos that have leveled neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles, where there has been no significant rainfall in more than eight months.
Several Altadena residents who lost homes in the Eaton Fire told the AP they received no notifications about their neighborhoods. For others, the first warning was an urgent text message in the middle of the night.
On Tuesday, Los Angeles County officials approved an outside review of how alerts functioned in the Eaton Fire and Palisades Fire in response to residents’ demands. City officials declined to answer The Associated Press’ questions about a lag in some Palisades Fire alerts, though Fire Capt. Branden Silverman said responding to a fire and determining evacuation needs can take some time.
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Rodriguez reported from San Francisco.
