A man has been charged with aviation offences for allegedly endangering the safe operation of a helicopter in the states Hunter Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will be alleged about 1am last Sunday (23 August 2026), a rescue helicopter was flying 1000 feet above the Charlestown area on route to a medical emergency when a drone intruded into the helicopter\u2019s airspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The helicopter did not need to take any evasive action and was able to continue with its duty. No air crew were injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officers from the Lake Macquarie Police District \u2013 with the assistance of specialist officers from the Police Rescue & Bomb Disposal Unit \u2013 commenced inquiries into the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About 3pm yesterday (Monday 24 August 2026), a search warrant was executed at a home on Newcastle Road, Wallsend, where a 46-year-old man was spoken to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A drone was seized at the property by police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police will also allege that about 1kg of cannabis was located at the premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man was taken to Waratah Police Station and charged with seven offences including:
Do act to threaten safety of aircraft\/persons on board
Operate unmanned aircraft in way that creates hazard
Fail to operate unmanned aircraft w\/in visual line of sight
Operate unmanned aircraft in weather condition not permitted
Not operate unmanned aircraft as approved\/permitted
Supply prohibited drug >small & <=indictable quantity
Possess prohibited drug<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was granted conditional bail to appear at Newcastle Local Court on Thursday 24 September 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man has been charged with aviation offences for allegedly endangering the safe operation of a helicopter in the states Hunter Region. It will be alleged about 1am last Sunday (23 August 2026), a rescue helicopter was flying 1000 feet above the Charlestown area on route to a medical emergency when a drone intruded into … Continue reading “Man charged with drone offences – Charlestown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newcastle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40550,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40549\/revisions\/40550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}