The power outage also affected a sold-out performance of Hershey Felder as Beethoven, which was in progress in the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. The show started at 8 PM, and the audience was asked to leave about 8:35 PM when it was announced that the power would not be restored for some time.

Wow.. that guy better hope they don't find him.

Drones can fly over people and buildings though. This article is misleading. Should read the actual FAA regulations maybe?

If you crash into something you are liable for the damages. Just you would be with a car or a plane.

The FAA's basic drone rules can be found here: Web Link
He would have been required to notify Moffet Field air traffic control.

The Mountain View Police Department is incorrect if they said drones are prohibited over people. The "never fly over people" isn't a regulation, it's a safety guideline (pretty common sense), although you have to be aware of airspace restrictions: Web Link

The FAA used to require registraion of all drone operators, but that was successfully challenged in court and the rule was overturned in May by the US Court of Appeals: Web Link

Good links Alex.

Actually for that part of Mountain View you are required to contact both Moffett Field and Palo Alto Airport.

I have to call both anytime I fly near my home as well.

Also, the rule requires "notification" and not "permission". Neither airport would have objected, anyway.

So while this individual technically broke a rule, notification would not have averted this accident.

The big crime is not staying at the scene and taking responsibility. Hope they catch him.

Now another reason to hate the damned things ... I too lost power in my place west of Shoreline near downtown for about 3 hours ... drones are invasive, and if I DON'T (and I DON'T!) give my permission to fly one of the things over me or my home, I truly HOPE it drops down to the ground because if I get to it before the "pilot" does, I will destroy the damned thing ... it's the equivalent of flying a camera (and possibly a weapon at some point in the very near future) over my head and invading my privacy ...

To the editor of the voice:

The use of "Kamikaze" to describe this drone in the picture caption is in bad taste and judgement.

It is disrespectful to the honorable military servicemen who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor and during WWII.

If that is not evident to you, you should consider finding a new line of work.

Power went out 15 minutes into the Theater Works performance at the performing Arts Center. The packed house had to leave without seeing the show. Whoever did this should have to reimburse everbody for the price of their ticket, and reimburse Theaterworks for their expenses for renting the facility and paying the performers and staff.

we need very large fines and prohibiting the offender from owning a drone for a set number of years. This will just get worse if not nippedsoon . Too many drone users think everything they do is juuuust fiiiine. It's not and the offenders should be appropriately, severely punished.

If witnesses got a good look at the perp, can the police release an artist's sketch? Circulate it around the local drone community. I'm sure someone will recognize him.

Nope. The word kamikaze isn't commonly thought of as offensive.

We have enough problems with hate speech without this nonsense.

The use of the term "Kamazi" implies that the operator purposely flew the plane into the high voltage wire. How was this intent determined by the writer if the operator can't be found?

Looks like the drone has feathers ?

Bigger picture here:

Web Link

You ain't seen nothing yet. No FAA regulation will ever be followed by blackmailers or terrorists or foreign regimes that may mark their deadly drones of every size "AMAZON." You won't even know who was involved.

Very irresponsible. This also likely caused a knock on effect to other areas of Mountain View... it would certainly explain a brief power glitch at my home in the Whisman area around the same time (according to logs I powered things back on at 8:16pm).

Anyway wrote: "So while this individual technically broke a rule, notification would not have averted this accident."

Notification would leave a paper trail that would help identify the perpetrator.

This incident should not be used as an excuse to create restrictive laws on such an important new technology as drones. We are only just beginning to learn some of the useful ways in which drones can supply us with valuable information and it would be a tragedy to undermine their development with a hastily-assembled legal framework that unduly restricts their use.

Oh great! Another intrusion on our privacy and an assault on our quality of life.
A drone was hovering over a friend's backyard as his teenage daughters were sunning themselves by the pool. Who knows what happened to any film?
They should be confined to fly over train tracks and freeways at a low enough level to prevent viewing into people homes and yards where we have an expectation of privacy.

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