A man has shot his neighbor’s drone out of the sky after his wife said it made her feel like she was being watched.
Aaron Hernandez was flying his $1,200 drone with a camera attached at his father’s home in St Amant, Louisiana, when Derek Vidrine started firing at it.
Vidrine, who had his gun with him as he was hunting squirrels on his property, disabled the drone with his first shot, leaving it hovering in the sky.
As Hernandez ran round to say he would not fly the aircraft again, his neighbor blasted it out of the sky with a second bullet.
Vidrine called Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office last week to complain that the drone – which Hernandez was given as a Christmas present last year – had been flying over his land for months.
His wife said the unmanned aircraft had been flying just 20ft above her as she rode her horse and she told her neighbor to stop it.
The sheriff’s deputy asked Hernandez to stop flying it over property he did not own, but Vidrine said he continued to do so – so he shot it.
The complaints are the first the sheriff’s office has received about drones and there no state laws prohibiting their use in Louisiana.
However FAA guidelines recommend pilots get permission from property owners before flying drones over their land.
Drones are also not permitted to fly above sports matches, large gatherings or over 1,200ft.
