Ex-Skydance Executive Escapes Prison Time After Admitting To “Recklessly” Operating Drone That Crashed Into Super Scooper, Endangered LA Wildfire Fighters

deadline.com:

A drone owned and piloted by the ex-president of Skydance Interactive damaged and temporarily grounded a Canadian Super Scooper during some of the worst and most destructive days of the wildfires that left swath of LA no more than ash, but Peter Akemann has escaped a potential sentence of a year behind bars.

In fact, thanks to a plea deal with the feds and an apparent software glitch, Akemann won’t serve a single day in prison for “recklessly” flying the DJI Mini 3 Pro into the wing of the Canadair CL-415 Super Scooper on January 9, according to Acting United States Attorney Joseph T.

McNally today. Appearing in court in downtown LA this afternoon on a criminal misdemeanor and one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, the 56-year-old Akemann entered a guilty plea and soon afterwards walked out the door on a $15,000 bond.

Despite the loss of a pivotal aircraft for five days in the battle against the Palisades Fire that devastated most of the upmarket neighborhood and the risk the so-called illegal drone posed to the two-member crew of the Quebec plane, all the former video game exec will have to do is fork out a bit more than $65,000 to the Canadian province to cover the repairs to the plane Actually, according to the DOJ, the Culver City-based Akemann will also have to “complete 150 hours of community service in support of the 2025 Southern California wildfire relief effort.” – whatever that means now the hurricane force winds and fires have subsided. “This damage caused to the Super Scooper is a stark reminder that flying drones during times of emergency poses an extreme threat to personnel trying to help people and compromises the overall ability of police and fire to conduct operations,” Acting USA