Jennifer Youngman, a 65-year-old woman living in rural northern Virginia shot down a drone flying over her property with a single shotgun blast.
Ars Technica reports: "Youngman told Ars that she had just returned
from church one Sunday morning and was cleaning her two shotguns -- .410
and a .20 gauge -- on her porch.
She had a clear view of the Blue Ridge
Mountains and neighbor Robert Duvall's property (yes, the same Robert
Duvall from The Godfather).
Youngman had seen two men set up a card
table on what she described as a 'turnaround place' on a country road
adjacent to her house.
'I go on minding my business, working on my .410
shotgun and the next thing I know I hear bzzzzz,' she said.
'This thing
is going down through the field, and they're buzzing like you would
scaring the cows.'
Youngman explained that she grew up hunting and
fishing in Virginia, and she was well-practiced at skeet and deer
shooting.
'This drone disappeared over the trees and I was cleaning
away, there must have been a five- or six-minute lapse, and I heard the
bzzzzz,' she said, noting that she specifically used 7.5 birdshot.
'I loaded my shotgun and took the safety off, and this thing came flying
over my trees.
I don't know if they lost command or if they didn't have
good command, but the wind had picked up.
It came over my airspace, 25
or 30 feet above my trees, and hovered for a second. I blasted it to
smithereens.'"
Ars goes on to explain that aerial trespassing isn't
currently recognized under American law.
"The Supreme Court ruled in a
case known as United States v. Causby
that a farmer in North Carolina could assert property rights up to 83
feet in the air.
There is a case still pending on whether or not
Kentucky drone pilot, David Boggs, was trespassing when he flew his
drone over somebody else's property.
"Broggs asked the court to rule
that there was no trespassing and that he is therefor entitled to damages of $1,500 for the destroyed drone."
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