A prominent video game developer who damaged a plane fighting the Palisades Fire with his drone has been sentenced to prison.
LOS ANGELES, CA — A prominent video game developer who admitted to flying a drone so recklessly that he crashed it into a plane that was battling the Palisades Fire has been sentenced to prison and home detention.
According to new court documents, the defendant said he flew the drone to check whether a friend’s home had burned in the fire.
Peter Tripp Akemann, 57, of Culver City, pleaded guilty in February to a misdemeanor count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft. He was sentenced Friday to 14 days in federal prison and 30 days home detention. He will have to pay $156,000 in fines and restitution, which includes the costs of repairing the Super Scooper aircraft.
He’ll also have to complete 150 hours of community service in support of local wildfire relief efforts, according to the plea agreement, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The drone left a 3-inch-by-6-inch hole in plane’s left wingwhen it collided with the aircraft on Jan. 9. The plane, which had been scooping water and dropping it on the Palisades Fire, was able to land safely. It was out of commission for several days while repairs were made. Meanwhile, some of the most destructive wildfires in California history continued to burn, according to authorities.
At the time of the collision, the Palisades fire area was under a temporary FAA flight restriction, which prohibited drone flights, prosecutors said.
Akemann quickly admitted to the crime, both within the legal system and in his personal life, according to documents filed by his attorney obtained by Patch.
“His fault in this case is a single decision of sheer stupidity when he made the decision to launch a recreational drone and fly it towards a fire-endangered area to see if a friend’s home had been burned. In doing so, he lost visual sight of the drone and foolishly counted on the technology of the drone’s geofencing to keep him from entering airspace that was critical to the fire suppression efforts,” his attorney wrote.
In the 1990s after earning a doctorate in math from UC Berkeley, Akemann co-founded the video game studio Treyarch. The studio would later be acquired by Activision and is known for its work on the best-selling “Call of Duty” series, according to court filings.
More recently, he served as president and chief technology officer of David Ellison’s Skydance Interactive and is an elected elder at his church, St. John’s Presbyterian, according to court documents.
On Feb. 2, Akemann professed his guilt and remorse to his congregation in a video that was transcribed in court documents.
“I did do it. It was reckless, and it was foolish,” he said.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Steven H. Craig, was among those who submitted letters of support to the court for Akemann.
“He has carried out his ordination vows with faithfulness and distinction … I hold Peter in the highest regard,” Craig wrote.
Those testimonials were submitted as part of Akemann’s unsuccessful bid for a sentence consisting solely of probation.
‘Extreme Threat’
The damaged Super Scooper is one of just two of its kind in Los Angeles county’s fleet.
“At the time, defendant knew that the Palisades Fire was not contained and that various airplanes and possibly helicopters or other aerial assets were flying missions to actively combat the fire,” reads the plea agreement filed earlier this year.
Court documents detail what happened leading up to Akemann crashing his drone into the plane on Jan. 9, which was two days after the fire broke out — and during a crucial time where firefighters were battling against the ferocious winds and extremely low humidity that led to the fire’s explosive growth.
“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 U.S. Attorney Joseph T. McNally said in a statement earlier this year.
That day, Akemann drove to a parking structure near the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and parked his vehicle on the top floor. He then launched the drone and flew it over 1.5 miles away toward the Palisades to observe damage caused by the fire, prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement.
He lost sight of the drone — a DJI Mini 3 Pro — which crashed into the plane. The plane was operating “near the beach line at Pacific Coast Highway and the Santa Monica Pier” at the time, the plea agreement states.
The Super Scooper was carrying two crew members, who were able to land the plane safely, authorities said.
LA County leases the two planes from the government of Quebec. Akemann’s restitution payment will pay back the province and an aircraft repair company, prosecutors said.
City News Service contributed to this report.