A small crew setting up for a fireworks display on top of Seattle’s famed Space Needle received an unexpected visitor on New Year’s Eve: a drone. The vehicle came crashing onto the Needle’s top platform in the afternoon of Saturday, December 31st and luckily, nobody was hurt. The footage above shows the drone hovering around the tower for several minutes before making a beeline toward the platform.
There are no city statutes prohibiting drone use in Seattle. Since nobody was hurt and there was no property damage the drone operator would not be charged on either of those counts. However, the pilot may face a charge of reckless endangerment – a gross misdemeanor that carries up to a year prison sentence and/or a $ 5,000 fine in the state of Washington.
It seems that officials have tracked down the drone’s owner, and Geekwire may have found that person’s (now locked) Twitter account. A cached tweet appears to show the operator blaming DJI’s ‘return to home’ function for the crash.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
