Summary
A firefighting super scooper battling the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles collided with a privately-owned DJI drone, causing significant damage and delaying operations.
The FBI is investigating to identify the drone’s owner, as unauthorized drones near wildfires pose risks to firefighting efforts.
Temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) are in place, but violations can lead to prosecution, fines, and jail time.
The damaged aircraft, one of only two available, is out of service until Monday.
Just to add, there are far more than 2 planes in the area now. The Canadians sent at least one, and the US military surged it’s entire aerial firefighting fleet to Los Angeles. So there’s something like 3 water bombers, 10 helicopter water scoops, and several fire retardant bombers.
“of this type”
I didn’t see it say that anywhere and there’s already conspiracy theories about the Democrats not helping. So I figured the extra knowledge couldn’t hurt.
I merely meant that type of plane is important since they have different roles.
In fact the air resources on the LA fires are significantly greater than you outlined. I haven’t been following it at that level but for the Palisades fire alone Watchduty says there are 5123 Personnel, 540 engines, 66 dozers, 60 water tenders and 44 helicopters. I haven’t seen a list for fixed wing but it’s way more than 3 tankers - they’ve been drawing S2s, LATs and VLATs from all over the state. And there are of course more aircraft from other states.
BTW if you are interested the Watchduty app is great for this info. I also use FlightAware and/or FlightRadar24 to see aircraft in the sky. And yes I nerd out on this stuff - I used to do fire reporting for my community.
That is fascinating and yeah I’ll probably bookmark that.