An Ohio man was charged with operating an aircraft without a license on September 24, 2022. He was spotted flying a multirotor drone in the vicinity of the OSU stadium by detectives from the Columbus Police Department’s Counter Terrorism Unit. They asked to see his TRUST certificate, he didn’t have one, and they cited him under Ohio state law. (The FAA hasn’t been directly involved.) The stadium is in class G airspace, and there was no TFR in effect at the time of the incident, so it doesn’t appear that he was doing anything unsafe, or anything illegal beyond the certification issue.

Court records indicate that the case was dismissed by Judge Michael Mcallister in Franklin County Municipal Court on February 16, 2023, with the defendant ordered to pay $154 in court costs. It’s probably safe to assume that it cost him some pretty substantial attorney fees as well.

One of the things we can take away from this incident is that this is the way the FAA intends to enforce the UAS regulations that apply to us. The FAA isn’t likely to show up at Hillbilly Field to check our certificates and registrations, but we could find ourselves interacting with local law enforcement officers at some point. FAA has a program called LEAP which provides information on FAA regulations to law enforcement agencies, and in case you’re wondering what the FAA is telling the cops about us, you can find some of it here: https://www.faa.gov/uas/public_safety_gov/public_safety_toolkit