Hawaii Drone Operator Chased Down And Tased By Park Security For Filming Volcano

A Hawaii drone operator was chased down and tased by a National Park security over a disagreement about his right to fly a three-inch drone there, KGMB (Honolulu) is reporting.

Travis Sanders, 35, says he brought his young daughter with him to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to catch a glimpse of the rising lava lake at Halema’uma’u Crater. He brought along his camera drone, too – a three-inch micro quadcopter drone.

“My toy has some lights on it so I thought it would be fun to fly it up and down — no big deal, right? Well apparently they’re not allowed there I found out.”

What happened next is a matter of dispute. Sanders claims that he was he was chased down, tazed, and assaulted – in front of his daughter – by a man who refused to identify himself. Witnesses back up his claim.

“A guy approached me in the dark and said, ‘Bring it down!’ and he was very angry. I had no idea he was a ranger. He sounded very angry, confrontational — like he wanted to fight — and I didn’t really want to stick around for it so I just told him, ‘I don’t have ID and I’m leaving.’ My daughter was crying. She was screaming, ‘Leave him alone! I hate you!’ and she started going after the park ranger guy. There was a whole bunch of people going, ‘Don’t worry man, we got it on video. He’s not going to do anything else to you,’ but he kept threatening to tase me again as if I was moving or something and the only thing that was moving was my mouth I was saying, ‘Okay, okay. I’m not moving. I’m not getting up. I’m not resisting you.'”

However, the National Park Service maintains that the drone operator was billigerent and confrontational and that their security personnel acted appropriately. National Park spokesperson Jessica Ferracane says that the drone operator was breaking the law by flying a drone at a National Park, and that Sanders resisted arrest.

“Apparently the suspect was very unpredictable and very unruly and the national park service ranger was really unclear what his next actions would be and needed to stop this individual.”

Forbes writer John Goglia, without taking sides on whether or not the drone operator resisted arrest, notes that the whole situation could have been avoided if the National Park Service stopped equating aerial photography drones with aircraft.

“It’s clear to me that the encounter would never have been precipitated in the first place if 3 inch flying toys were not considered unmanned aircraft subject to manned aircraft rules. It seems high time to me for Congress to step in and enact reasonable rules for the operation of unmanned aircraft, including not considering toys below a certain size to fall within the definition of aircraft.”

Do you think Hawaii park officials were right in chasing down and tazing a drown operator for flying his drone at the park? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Images courtesy of: Shutterstock/Piotr Debowski, Wikimedia Commons]