A Charlotte drone pilot has pleaded guilty to a federal charge for flying inside a runway exclusion zone at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT). Marco Antonio Ochoa, 50, entered the plea on September 22 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark T. Odulio to one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft. He faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Ochoa launched the drone in March from the Airport Overlook, a public park the airport built so visitors can watch planes land and take off. It sits between two active runways. According to a search warrant reported by WSOC-TV in April, he was shooting video for a social media post for one of his clients.

The airport’s page for the Overlook lists its hours, its playgrounds, its food truck area and its pet relief areas. It says nothing about drones.

Airport Detection Flagged The Seven-Minute Flight Immediately

The airport’s drone-detection system flagged Ochoa’s flight as soon as it started, according to WSOC-TV’s reporting on the warrant. Federal marshals tracked the drone for the seven minutes it was airborne, at 32 to 100 feet (10 to 30 meters), while the runways were in use.

Officials said he had no permission to fly in the restricted airspace and had not properly registered the drone. Agents seized it. Neither the warrant coverage nor the federal announcement names the make or model.

The FBI and the Federal Air Marshal Service investigated, and Assistant U.S. Attorney David Kelly is prosecuting, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina. U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson’s warning to other pilots: “Flying in restricted areas can land you in hot water with federal authorities.” No sentencing date has been set.

Federal Law Turns The Overlook Into A No-Drone Zone

The count carries the name of 18 U.S.C. § 39B, “Unsafe operation of unmanned aircraft,” which Congress added in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. That law makes knowingly flying a drone without authorization inside a runway exclusion zone a federal crime, even if no aircraft is put at risk.

The statute defines that zone as a rectangle centered on an active runway at a Class B, C or D airport. It runs 1 statute mile past each end of the runway and is half a mile wide. CLT is Class B airspace, and the Overlook faces Runways 1L-19R and 1R-19L. Pilots who have a real reason to fly near an airport request FAA authorization, most often through LAANC. Ochoa had none.

The squeeze is about to get tighter. CLT is building a fourth parallel runway, 1C-19C, and says on its Overlook page that aircraft operations will move even closer to the park when it opens in fall 2027.

DroneXL’s Take

DroneXL spent the summer covering drone cases where the line was thin. The Houston church videographer flew for two minutes near a World Cup fan zone while NRG Stadium sat empty, and our coverage argued that intent has to count for something in a case like that. The same pattern ran through the 300-plus drones federal agents seized in the tournament’s first ten days, a population we found was almost entirely people the enforcement system was never built to stop.

Ochoa’s case is different. Seven minutes, as low as 32 feet, from a lawn wedged between two runways while they were in use, for a client, on a drone that wasn’t properly registered. This is the flight § 39B was written for, and it is exactly the kind of flight that gets cited every time someone argues for tighter rules on the rest of us. Don’t be that guy. If a client wants the plane-spotter shot at CLT, bring a long lens to the fence and leave the drone in the car.

Sources: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of North Carolina, WSOC-TV, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, 18 U.S.C. § 39B

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.