Peter Akemann, the former president of Skydance Interactive, has pleaded guilty to flying the drone that collided with and subsequently grounded a Canadian Super Scooper firefighting plane as the Palisades fires raged on Jan. 9.
Akemann, who worked with Skydance’s video game and virtual reality arm starting in 2016 and recently left his role, agreed to a guilty plea of one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft. The charge, a misdemeanor, could result in a sentence of up to one year in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced on Friday.
The Jan. 9 collision of a DJI Mini 3 Pro with a firefighting aircraft provided by the government of Quebec to help L.A. battle its destructive wildfires made national headlines. The crash damaged a wing of the Canadair CL-415 Super Scooper, so called because it can fly low over water sources and ladle over one thousand gallons of water to dump on a fire, and grounded the plane for days.
Per the plea agreement, Akemann launched the drone from the top floor of a parking garage near Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade on Jan. 9 in an attempt to survey the fire ravaging the Pacific Palisades. But he lost track of the drone once he had flown it more than a mile and a half away from its starting point, after which it collided with the Canadian aircraft being manned by two crew members.
By this point, Federal Aviation Administration temporary flight restrictions barring drones from flying near the ongoing L.A.-area wildfires were already in effect. Akemann had already left his Skydance role at the time.
“This defendant recklessly flew an aircraft into airspace where first responders were risking their lives in an attempt to protect lives and property,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph T. McNally said in a statement on Friday. “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. As this case demonstrates, we will track down drone operators who violate the law and interfere with the critical work of our first responders.”
Akemann’s defense attorneys, Glen T. Jonas and Vicki Podberesky, said he is “deeply sorry” for the incident in a statement. “He accepts responsibility for his grave error in judgment, and is cooperating with the government in effort to make amends,” the statement reads. “There are a number of mitigating factors that will come to light during the court proceedings including Mr. Akemann’s reliance on the DJI Drone’s geo fencing safeguard feature and the failure of that feature.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office notes that the damage to the aircraft’s wing cost the Quebec government and an aircraft repairs company at least $65,169. As part of the plea agreement, Akemann agreed to cover those costs and complete 150 hours of community service to help aid Southern California wildfire relief efforts.
Akemann, a graduate of the University of California San Diego who holds a PhD from the University of California Berkeley, co-founded the video game developer Treyarch (which worked on Spider-Man and Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, among other titles) and The Workshop Entertainment (behind Sorcery and Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage). He joined Skydance in 2016 after the entertainment company acquired The Workshop and launched an interactive division that has since produced titles like Skydance’s Behemoth and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.
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