Drone pilot to plead guilty in collision that grounded aircraft fighting Palisades fire

A man who was piloting a drone that collided with a firefighting aircraft working on the Palisades fire has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, pay a fine and complete community service, federal prosecutors said Friday. Peter Tripp Akemann, 56, of Culver City was charged with unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft. He could still face up to a year in federal prison, prosecutors said. The drone, which authorities say was flying in restricted airspace on Jan. 9, put a fist-sized hole in the left wing of a Super Scooper -- a massive fixed-wing plane that can drop large amounts of water onto a fire. The collision knocked the plane out of commission for about five days and destroyed the drone.