Drone pilot sentenced (lightly) for NFL playoff game flight

So much for dissuasion. An unlicensed pilot whose legally prohibited flight of an unregistered drone during a December National Football League (NFL) playoff game has been sentenced to a fine and placed on probation for his smorgasbord of offenses.

A US magistrate judge sentenced the drone operator to a $500 fine and a year’s probation for having flown a drone during the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens AFC championship home game against the Kansas City Chiefs. The outing provoked a halt in play by referees, and was one of four total illegal UAVs detected around the stadium that day.

Making things worse – though clearly not creating even heavier consequences for the convicted pilot – was that the drone was not registered with regulators as required, nor was the operator. He was quickly apprehended by Maryland police who used the stadium’s counter-UAV tech to establish his whereabouts a mile from the facility. That would suggest  he probably conducted an unauthorized beyond visual line of sight sortie, to boot.

Regulations prohibit drone flights around NFL, Major League Baseball, NCAA and other big sports stadiums on game days, with bans going into effect from an hour before until 60 minutes after events within a three mile radius. The Ravens-Chiefs contest featured two halts in play following UAV sightings by referees, the two others having been detected by counter-drone tech.

The $500 fine was a mere fraction of the maximum $30,000 penalty regulations provide for banned drone activity around stadiums – infractions NFL officials said totaled about 2,500 last year alone. Those nearly doubled the tally for 2022, and are expected to rise further as the number of craft, and ranks of clueless operators, continue to rise.

Prosecutors in the Baltimore case dropped most of the charges that would have carried maximum sentencing of four years in prison, citing the defendant’s previously clean record, and his willingness to plead guilty on claims he was unaware of regulations.

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