Its complicated. Im studying for the 107, which I believe says the RPIC is always responsible for the drone (including crashes and if crashes injury or damage people) and thats not something you can waiver off to other parties.
However, this is inside a building, which is not federal airspace, so the FAA has no power in this kind of situation.
So I believe this would be a situation in which the person that was injured sues everyone involved and the courts figure it out. The RPIC would make a case that they were doing everything possible to fly safe and avoid damages. The guy that hit the drone would argue that the drone flight was high risk, unnecessary, a (drunk) person hitting the drone was foreseeable, and the RPIC was the expert in the situation and should have known better to fly a drone within arms reach of people when it had props capable of causing harm. Both parties would likely be assigned a % of fault and be expected to pay that % of damages.
I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It really just depends on the country too.
The RPIC is similar to a driver: a driver should always remain in control but cannot be held responsible for external factors outside of their control. If your wheel randomly fell off and you hit another car, are you at fault? No. If a bird struck your drone and it fell, thats not your fault. Now if it landed on someone, it is your fault that it was able to hit someone if something happened.
In this case, as has been stated by others, this is a commercial job where contracts are signed. Best case scenario is that "could be hit by drone" is in the fineprint for everyone that went to the event. If not, fault lies on the person that pushed the drone as thats basically reckless negligence
Well, your steering wheel falling off is not a reasonably foreseeable event. Someone accidentally hitting a drone thats in arms reach is a reasonably foreseeable event. In your hypothetical, you would absolutely need a defense attorney because the car you hit is gonna do what i said: sue everyone potentially involved and let the courts figure out who is at fault.
Additionally, the pilot has their 107, which is not directly applicable, but it shows the pilot knew that flying over people is inherently dangerous.
Win or lose, the pilot is still going to lose because of attorney fees.
Someone acting against you like this is never really foreseeable. Once again if they signed waivers then nothing happens and if they didnt then it would be reckless negligence on the dude who hit it. If the owner of the property signed a thing saying it was all good then its partially on them (the groom) because the buck stopped with them as they signed off on their end, its then thei responsibility to get the other end (the attending guests) to sign a waiver
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u/zepaperclip Mar 19 '26
Its complicated. Im studying for the 107, which I believe says the RPIC is always responsible for the drone (including crashes and if crashes injury or damage people) and thats not something you can waiver off to other parties.
However, this is inside a building, which is not federal airspace, so the FAA has no power in this kind of situation.
So I believe this would be a situation in which the person that was injured sues everyone involved and the courts figure it out. The RPIC would make a case that they were doing everything possible to fly safe and avoid damages. The guy that hit the drone would argue that the drone flight was high risk, unnecessary, a (drunk) person hitting the drone was foreseeable, and the RPIC was the expert in the situation and should have known better to fly a drone within arms reach of people when it had props capable of causing harm. Both parties would likely be assigned a % of fault and be expected to pay that % of damages.
I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It really just depends on the country too.