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FAA enforcement action 20 Thousand dollar fine

Jagerbomb52

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Finally the FAA has made a statement with this large fine. Follow the rules boys and girls or you could find yourself in the same situation.

Calif. tourist fined $20K for out-of-control drone that landed at airport in Las Vegas
 
It's his own fault. Taking off from a parking structure full of rebar. His compass was out of calibration and suffered a fly away. Thankfully there was no worst case scenario and he only got away with a $20k fine.
 
Scary. I flew out to sea less than 1/2 off the side of Hilo’s Airport runway — more than once, but it has very few flights, and I was nowhere near any flight path. It did cross my mind that if I had a compass-flyaway issue like I had early-on (Autel fixed), it could be a really bad scene.
I don’t do that in AZ...
 
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Found his youtube channel. He posted this back in Nov of 2018 so it was last year.

My drone flew away after loosing GPS, drifting 4 miles away landing at McCarren airport when trump was in town and drone was intercepted by secret service.even after showing it was a system failure i was still fined 15,000!!!

 
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It makes you think about flying if your within 15 miles of airport.I had a fly away once in my back yard luckily I was able to bring it down safely.
 
I can't believe that a drone will fly away 4 miles.... That's just crazy.
That was a Phantom 3. I am not sure which version of the 3 it was, but the Pro version has a range of 3 miles out, so it can do 6 miles round trip. So basically if flying on it's own, all P3 models can achieve the same distance, since they all have the same battery.
 
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And we were talking in another thread (about shooting a drone down) that nobody would get fined a large amount. hmmmm
 
And we were talking in another thread (about shooting a drone down) that nobody would get fined a large amount. hmmmm
There was a case where a drone was shot down and the system didn't wanted to proceed with the charges. All the shooter had to do was replaced the drone.
 
Found his youtube channel. He posted this back in Nov of 2018 so it was last year.

My drone flew away after loosing GPS, drifting 4 miles away landing at McCarren airport when trump was in town and drone was intercepted by secret service.even after showing it was a system failure i was still fined 15,000!!!
This guy's fine started the moment he lifted off the self parking lot roof of Caesars Palace Hotel. He was two FULL sectors into the Zero Altitude Flight Prohibited Zone around that airport and on the border of the 3rd sector. And only 1.19 miles from the first airstrip on the airport property edge closest to his launch. So the flight was illegal in every sense.

It appears he lost control around 2 mins, the last time he adjusted yaw in the frame. After that it was apparent the aircraft was in a static hover with no GPS guidance and was drifting on the SE breeze. He says it drifted four miles. That would put the drone going down at the farthest corner of the airport to make that mileage that was confirmed in the video. And his "flight" crossed directly through the N/S runway approach path from the North.

What I don't understand is when you violate a law the authorities have the legal right to seize and impound and retain any equipment, gear, guns, etc. used to commit the crime. So how did this guy get his drone back to retrieve the SD card to create the video a year ago? That is the one thing that doesn't really make sense here. We do know the incident of drift away did occur. So its puzzling to assume FAA gave the bird back. One other note, in the early part of the video there is part of the drone flopping into the frame. I didn't recognize what that was. Kinda looked gimbalish.??

Based on the No Fly Zone location this probably wasn't a DJI drone as geo-fencing would have prevented a launch unless it was a hacked bird.

I guess it wasn't this guy's day. Had the wind been blowing in the other direction it would have taken him into safer airspace away from the airport and may have been just a lost bird. The upper breeze had to be moving at least 10mph to drift that far in the time showing on the video.

LV_Flyaway_Takeoff.jpg

LV_Takeoff-Location.jpg
 
This guy's fine started the moment he lifted off the self parking lot roof of Caesars Palace Hotel. He was two FULL sectors into the Zero Altitude Flight Prohibited Zone around that airport and on the border of the 3rd sector. And only 1.19 miles from the first airstrip on the airport property edge closest to his launch. So the flight was illegal in every sense.

It appears he lost control around 2 mins, the last time he adjusted yaw in the frame. After that it was apparent the aircraft was in a static hover with no GPS guidance and was drifting on the SE breeze. He says it drifted four miles. That would put the drone going down at the farthest corner of the airport to make that mileage that was confirmed in the video. And his "flight" crossed directly through the N/S runway approach path from the North.

What I don't understand is when you violate a law the authorities have the legal right to seize and impound and retain any equipment, gear, guns, etc. used to commit the crime. So how did this guy get his drone back to retrieve the SD card to create the video a year ago? That is the one thing that doesn't really make sense here. We do know the incident of drift away did occur. So its puzzling to assume FAA gave the bird back. One other note, in the early part of the video there is part of the drone flopping into the frame. I didn't recognize what that was. Kinda looked gimbalish.??

Based on the No Fly Zone location this probably wasn't a DJI drone as geo-fencing would have prevented a launch unless it was a hacked bird.

I guess it wasn't this guy's day. Had the wind been blowing in the other direction it would have taken him into safer airspace away from the airport and may have been just a lost bird. The upper breeze had to be moving at least 10mph to drift that far in the time showing on the video.

View attachment 5603

View attachment 5605
He got fined and they returned his bird. That is most likely how he got rhe footage. As for what kind of quad it was, at some point you get to see one of the legs and the design is from a Phantom 3 series. He most likely never updated his bird and that is how he can circumvent the system. Geofencing 2.0 was introduced by DJI on Nov 2018.
 
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He most likely never updated his bird and that is how he can circumvent the system. Geofencing 2.0 was introduced by DJI on Nov 2018.
Hmm, I have a hard time believing that DJI software prior to November 2018 would have allowed a flight just 1.19 miles from an international airport. From what I observed going back to the earliest days of DJI they have always had geofencing and in this location even the weakest earliest software version would have stopped this guy cold. Unless he skirted around it with a hack. And since the area was in a Flight Prohibited Zone there was no way he would get DJI to unlock his takeoff.

From DJI's website:
"DJI first implemented geofencing in 2013, and it is now established as an important tool to help our customers make thoughtful flight decisions, while also addressing legitimate concerns about safety and security by helping prevent unauthorized flights in the most sensitive locations,” said Brendan Schulman, Vice President of Policy & Legal Affairs.

The Phantom 3 launched in April of 2015 amid the flurry of user complaints about the restrictive geofencing for all the DJI drones at that time. It surely stopped me cold from buying their products. Not to mention a half dozen other valid reasons.
 
Hmm, I have a hard time believing that DJI software prior to November 2018 would have allowed a flight just 1.19 miles from an international airport. From what I observed going back to the earliest days of DJI they have always had geofencing and in this location even the weakest earliest software version would have stopped this guy cold. Unless he skirted around it with a hack. And since the area was in a Flight Prohibited Zone there was no way he would get DJI to unlock his takeoff.

From DJI's website:
"DJI first implemented geofencing in 2013, and it is now established as an important tool to help our customers make thoughtful flight decisions, while also addressing legitimate concerns about safety and security by helping prevent unauthorized flights in the most sensitive locations,” said Brendan Schulman, Vice President of Policy & Legal Affairs.

The Phantom 3 launched in April of 2015 amid the flurry of user complaints about the restrictive geofencing for all the DJI drones at that time. It surely stopped me cold from buying their products. Not to mention a half dozen other valid reasons.
Before Nov 2018, all you would get is a circle around the airport. Beyond that you were free to fly. I have been flying DJI since 2017. Although I have never flown so close to an airport, I was curious on what would happen and turned it on half a mile from SJU. It gave me the Go Fly green banner.

The red circle would end at the complex in the link below. Check and see how close we are to SJU.

Coral Beach Apartments
5869 Av. Isla Verde, Carolina, 00979, Puerto Rico
+1 787-791-1237
 
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Before Nov 2018, all you would get is a circle around the airport. Beyond that you were free to fly. I have been flying DJI since 2017. Although I have never flown so close to an airport, I was curious on what would happen and turned it on half a mile from SJU. It gave me the Go Fly green banner.
The red circle would end at the complex in the link below. Check and see how close we are to SJU.
Wow that is actually scary. That could sure put a pilot in hot water in a hurry. Or severely in debt like the subject of this thread. Perhaps you should report that inconsistency to DJI. Maybe PR needs to be revisited by their people.

I called up San Juan in AirMap and the Zero Altitude No Fly restrictions extend from the airport all the way out to Calle Providencia before transitioning into 100 foot allowance. So it appears something is amiss in the DJI information display to be so far off the mark. One thing I noticed with your FAA sectors for PR is each one is square. Here in Alaska they are rectangular with two to one ratio of length to width.
SanJuan.jpg
 
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You have wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much time on your hands. LMAO
 
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Wow that is actually scary. That could sure put a pilot in hot water in a hurry. Or severely in debt like the subject of this thread. Perhaps you should report that inconsistency to DJI. Maybe PR needs to be revisited by their people.

I called up San Juan in AirMap and the Zero Altitude No Fly restrictions extend from the airport all the way out to Calle Providencia before transitioning into 100 foot allowance. So it appears something is amiss in the DJI information display to be so far off the mark. One thing I noticed with your FAA sectors for PR is each one is square. Here in Alaska they are rectangular with two to one ratio of length to width.
View attachment 5607
That was before Geofencing 2.0 in Nov 2018. This is how Geo 2 looks now.
Screenshot_20191122-174546.jpg
 

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