Police charge drone pilot for photographing Air Force airport

By The Nation

 

 

A shopping mall’s mechanic accused of flying a drone in the vicinity of the Air Force airport in Bangkok’s Don Muang district and publishing the footage on social media, claimed he merely wanted to record the view – not the airport.

Jatupol Phodee, 37, also claimed to have no knowledge about the Thai authority’s ban on flying drones within a nine-kilometre radius of an airport.

 

Reporting himself to police on Thursday, Jatupol failed to convince police that he merely wanted to try out the Bt8,000 drone he bought from an online shop and take a picture of the view.

 

Police said that when Jatupol flew the drone in August, he was deliberately using a wider angle that would capture shots of the airport.

 

Officers have charged him with violating the Act on Certain Offences Against Air Navigation 2015 by flying a drone without permission. He is also charged with breaking the Confidential Information Act by photographing a protected location without permission.

 

He was taken into custody to appear before a court for further legal action.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30329669

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-10-19

 

RELATED: How to register a drone in Thailand

 

 

 

Murderers get bail, before and after conviction.

 

Using a drone to photograph the array of (mostly broken) aircraft at Don Muang gets you remanded in custody...

Kind of silly when Google Earth gives us one-meter resolution. 

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, attrayant said:

Kind of silly when Google Earth gives us one-meter resolution. 

take google to court

Some countries have in fact done just that.

 

Im not complaining about Google. I’m saying a 9 km no-drone-zone is silly when there are other ways to get much closer aerial views.

 

So much so Airforce security.

Now it’s been in the major news that a drone operator/owner has to register the thing in 90 days or face heavy fines and jail time, we're going to hear all about the near miss stories with aircraft again.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

claimed to have no knowledge about the Thai authority’s ban on flying drones within a nine-kilometre radius of an airport

The day that "having no knowledge" of a law becomes a valid excuse is the day all Thai prisons will be empty.

10 hours ago, attrayant said:

Kind of silly when Google Earth gives us one-meter resolution. 

 

 

 

The "silliness" of this application of Thai law? 

Doubt the 9km has much to do with anything except minimizing aircraft hazards. At 9km on a normal approach an aircraft is about 1500ft up. Not sure you could see small a drone to control it above that height. 

12 hours ago, Sir Swagman said:

Doubt the 9km has much to do with anything except minimizing aircraft hazards. At 9km on a normal approach an aircraft is about 1500ft up. Not sure you could see small a drone to control it above that height. 

 

 

Keep notice that no drone in Thailand is allowed to fly higher than 90 Meters by law.

Which probably means 99.9% drone flights here are illegal

11 hours ago, siam2007 said:

 

 

Keep notice that no drone in Thailand is allowed to fly higher than 90 Meters by law.

Which probably means 99.9% drone flights here are illegal

Well, you wouldn't expect drone flight to be out of step with everything else here would you?

On 10/19/2017 at 7:33 PM, webfact said:

"Officers have charged him with violating the Act on Certain Offences Against Air Navigation 2015 by flying a drone without permission. He is also charged with breaking the Confidential Information Act by photographing a protected location without permission"

What about him endangering all the aircraft passengers and crew using the airport for lawful means ?

 

On 10/21/2017 at 7:38 PM, cracker1 said:

What about him endangering all the aircraft passengers and crew

 

They thought about including that but nobody could keep a straight face at the thought of a 1000 gram plastic toy being a danger to a rigid metal object that is 30 to 50 thousand times more massive.