Ohio man charged with felony for using drone to film accident

In the first of what will surely be many such cases to come, a remote-controlled airplane hobbyist was charged with a felony after failing to comply with a police request to ground the drone he was flying above vehicular accident wreckage. The 31-year-old pilot, Stanley Kele, whose $4,000 camera-equipped hexacopter was hovering 75 feet above a crash site in Clark County, Ohio, argues that at no time was any command issued. “I’m not an idiot. If I had known that Care Flight was on the way, my helicopter would have come down immediately. There wouldn’t have been any dispute.”

Nonetheless, law enforcement agents charged Kele with disorderly conduct, misconduct in an emergency, and obstruction, claiming the hexacopter would have interfered with a medical helicopter en route; regardless of what really happened, Stanley posted his $425 bail before proceeding to his first court hearing on April 15.

Stanley Kele

According to the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch , there are currently no regulations in Ohio governing the private use of unmanned aircraft, so expect the case to usher debates on both the state and federal levels. By contrast, the Federal Aviation Administration requires law-enforcement agencies to receive special permits for deployment.

This inherently implies that hobbyists are sheltered from these regulations, bringing into question whether Stanley was within his rights to fly his hexacopter above the accident. Some may suggest that aerial videotaping an accident is synonymous with videotaping police activity using a mobile device; something within one’s constitutional right if the activity takes place within a public space. Others may contend that it’s best to obey commands by officers involving crime or accident scenes.

Peter Sachs is an all-in-one Connecticut lawyer, helicopter pilot, and drone hobbyist who has been closely following the case. He points out that the expensive, $4,000 drone is a clear indicator that Stanley is “far from amateur.” In other words, “he knows what he’s doing.” Sachs says he can’t imagine anyone with this kind of expertise to knowingly interfere with a helicopter attempting to save lives. For Sachs, the issue is one of infringement upon one’s First Amendment rights, and is a clear indicator of the public’s unease and technophobia.  After all, “shoulda stuck with a horse,” was a common phrase uttered toward anyone suffering Model T mechanical issues in the early part of the 20th century.

Via Dispatch