Treyarch Co-Founder Pleads Guilty To Striking Fire Plane With Drone
One of two founders of Call of Duty development studio Treyarch, pleaded guilty to striking a firefighting plane with a drone, hindering response to LA fires.
In possibly the most unexpected news of the day, the co-founder of long-time Call of Duty studio, Treyarch, has plead guilty to striking a firefighting plane with a drone during the recent LA fires. In January, several destructive fires tore through the city of Los Angeles, leaving neighborhoods burnt to the foundations, and thousands of people without homes to return to. The “Super Scooper” plane in question was grounded after the incident, weakening the firefighter’s ability to control the raging Palisades Fire.
Treyarch co-founder pleads guilty to striking a firefighting plane with a drone
Peter Tripp Akemann, the co-founder of Treyarch, faces up to a year in prison for unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, but hopes to avoid prison. As part of his plea, Akemann will agree to pay a $65,000 fine to cover the cost of repairing the damaged plane and will perform 150 hours of community service in Southern California wildfire relief efforts. Akemann’s lawyer issued a statement, saying that Akemann is “deeply sorry” and he “accepts responsibility for his grave error in judgement, and is cooperating with the government in effort to make amends.”
Akemann was one of two founders who started Treyarch in 1996. The developer released several games before it was acquired by Activision in 2001. Today, it is one of a handful of studios that works primarily on the Call of Duty franchise, including last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The other studios include Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software, among others. Akemann left Treyarch at some point and appears to have worked most recently as the President of Skydance Interactive via The Verge, but it is hard to tell the exact history because his LinkedIn page no longer exists. Following the announcement, it appears that Akemann’s X/Twitter profile has removed all its posts as well.
It is possible that Akemann’s plea will not be accepted. At the time of writing, a verdict on the case does not appear to have been reached. Acting US attorney Joseph McNally said in a statement that this “is a stark reminder that flying drones during times of emergency poses an extreme threat to personnel trying to help people and compromises the overall ability of police and fire to conduct operations.” McNally continued, vowing that “we will track down drone operators who violate the law and interfere with the critical work of our first responders.” This incident occurred around the time that drone creator, DJI, announced its decision to eliminate geofencing, which now allows drone s to fly over previously restricted airspace, such as active wildfires, also reported by The Verge.
It is strange to hear about this news in recent weeks, read all the reports about it, and then discover it is tangentially related to the video games industry. This is not the kind of news story I expected to be writing about today.
