The defendant has agreed to pay more than $65,000 in restitution and faces up to a year in federal prison, prosecutors said.

A Culver City man has agreed to plead guilty to crashing a drone into a Super Scooper aircraft making water drops over the deadly Palisades Fire, grounding the powerful firefighting aircraft early into the battle against the growing wildfire.

A Southern California man admitted to operating a drone that collided with a firefighting airplane during the Palisades Fire as the blaze was charring tens of thousands of acres earlier this month, officials said Friday.

A Culver City, California, man has agreed to plead guilty to flying a drone that damaged the wing of a Super Scooper firefighting plane during the Palisades blaze this month.

As part of the plea agreement, Akemann agreed to pay full restitution to the Government of Quebec, which supplied the plane, and an aircraft repair company that repaired the plane. It cost at least $65,169 to repair the plane, prosecutors said.

Peter Tripp Akeman, 56, admitted to launching a private drone from a rooftop on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade Jan. 9 that hit an aircraft fighting the inferno in the sky

A man who launched a drone from the top of a parking structure and lost sight of it has agreed to plead guilty to unsafely operating a drone after it left a gaping hole in the wing of a firefighting a