21-year-old admits flying drone that was hit by LRT train
A full-time national serviceman flew his drone over train tracks in Sengkang, but the drone ended up getting hit by a train.
This was after it had run out of power and landed on the tracks.
There was no damage to the LRT train or any disruption to train services.
Yesterday, Homen Wong, 21, admitted to operating a drone in a manner that could endanger the safety of persons and property.
Another charge of operating the drone within 5km of Seletar Airport and Paya Lebar Air Base was taken into consideration.
Wong, who has since completed his national service, flew his drone for about 40 minutes at a maximum height of around 50m at an open field near Sengkang LRT station on Feb 8 last year.
As he wanted to take aerial videos and photographs of trains entering and leaving the station, he flew the drone over train tracks and over pedestrian walkways, without a Class 2 activity permit from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).
The activity permit would have required Wong to operate his drone in compliance with safe operating conditions, such as not letting it interfere with public transport and not operating it over public roads and structures unnecessarily.
When the drone was above the train tracks, it ran low on battery power.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Houston Johannus said Wong lost control of the drone and it landed on the train tracks, where it was eventually hit by an LRT train.
Wong later asked the station staff for help to retrieve his drone.
The damaged drone was retrieved about a week later and returned to Wong.
But Wong later posted a video of the incident on YouTube, and titled it "DJI Mavic Pro survived a train crash".
The video was then circulated on the Internet, and SBS Transit lodged a report to CAAS in April.
Wong is expected to be sentenced on Jan 9.
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