25-year-old China national Xu Zi Zhou, who is on a student pass, was fined $5,000 on 10 October for flying a drone at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to take photos of his girlfriend and her friend.
He had pleaded guilty to one count of operating an unmanned aircraft without a valid activity permit within 5km of Tengah Aerodrome, with 2 other charges relating to the regulations of unmanned aircraft operations being considered during his sentencing.
What happened
Xu had purchased a DJI Mavic Air 2 drone from Shopee on 28 May 2021.
he then took the drone, which weighs 568.5g, and carried out a few test flights around his school at NTU, before meeting his girlfriend at her friend at NTU’s Yunnan Garden on 1 June 2021.
He used the drone to take photos and videos of his girlfriend and her friend at the garden, and the drone was detected by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore to be flying at a maximum altitude of 518.37feet above sea level, as well as being within 5km of Tengah Aerodrome.
Officers from CAAS were then dispatched to Yunnan Garden, and they then saw Xu operating the drone, before asking him to land the machine.
According to the drone’s flight logs, Xu flew it 5 times that day, with the total flight time being 18 minutes.
According to CAAS’ regulations on unmanned aircraft activities, a Class 2 permit is required for activities with the drone under various conditions – such as if it is used to recreational purposed and is below 25kg in weight, if it is within 5km of any military airbase or civil aerodrome, and it is being flown at an altitude of higher than 200 feet above sea level.
Xu would have been required to fly the drone in accordance with the regulations, if he had applied for the permit.