Man Was Flying Aircraft With His Seven-Year-Old Son

This is starting to be something of an epidemic. Another UAV has been shot down, and this time a young person was watching the first person video on an iPad.

The incident happened in Rutherford County, TN last Saturday. Television station WKRN reports that Gary Sammons was flying his DJI Phantom 4 UAV near his home while his seven-year-old son watched the video from the flight on an iPad.

Sammons said his son asked who the people on the ground were ... and as he hovered the drone, someone at a neighbor's house opened fire, bringing it down.

Attorneys interviewed for the report said that the law is unclear concerning privacy rights and use of U.S. airspace. But Drone attorney, James Mackler with Frost Brown and Todd did say that if you have a problem, the best course of action is to call local authorities and not take matters into your own hands with a shotgun.

The person who shot down the drone in Tennessee has not been charged with a crime, and the responding deputy could not say definitively whether any laws had been broken either by the pilot or the shooter.

It is, however, a federal crime to shoot at an aircraft, and the FAA has included UAVs under their definition of "aircraft."

(Image from file)

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.rcsotn.com