Drone Pilot Loses Everything After Ignoring FAA – Philly Drone Life

Okay, so most of the time when you do something stupid, you learn from it and then move forward being wiser and less prone to repeat that stupidity, right? And then there are some people (Philly Drone Life) who may need a couple of times for something to really sink in so they understand that what they’re doing is wrong and won’t do it again. But then there are those who will just never learn, no matter what.

The Consent Judgment Against Philly Drone Life

The consent judgment against Philly Drone Life was released today from the United States District Court, and it’s a doozy. So let’s talk about how you go about screwing around and finding out with the FAA. Hi everyone, welcome back to the channel, and for those of you here for the very first time, my name is Russ, and this is 51 Drones, and we’re talking about Philly Drone Life.

Now many of you have probably heard of him if you’re interested in drones or you’ve been following any of that news for the past six years, because that’s how long it’s been going on. Philly Drone Life is a YouTube channel run by a gentleman named Mikey, and he did some bad things. He is finally paying the price for it now.

The FAA’s Educational Approach

Since 2019, Philly Drone Life, or Mikey as many people know him, has been operating a drone in a multitude of unsafe and illegal ways, and according to this judgment, the United States alleges that during certain flights, Mikey improperly operated a drone inside controlled airspace near the Philadelphia Airport, over people and over cars, and at least in one instance (probably more), he lost control of a drone, causing it to fly uncontrolled over Philadelphia.

You should know when you get caught or reported to the FAA for doing something you shouldn’t be doing, their very first order of business is to locate you and inform you of your wrongdoing. They’ll let you know that what you’re doing is unsafe and/or illegal, and their primary goal with any early interactions is to inform. They want people to learn because, let’s face it, there is so much to learn when it comes to anything related to aviation, and that includes flying drones. They regularly give people the benefit of the doubt; they really want to make sure people are educated about these things. And they did that with Mikey several times.

Enforcement and Penalties

So what did Mikey do? Well, he just kept doing the things they told him he should not and could not be doing. He purposely and egregiously ignored what they warned him not to do. So the next step after Education is enforcement. In 2024, they were basically left with no choice, and they handed down a penalty—123 penalties, in fact, at a cost of $1,500 for each of them. So his total fee added up to $182,400. He flew recklessly, and the worst part is he filmed it all and posted it on his YouTube channel.

Another thing to note: he did all of this without having a Part 107 remote pilot certificate, or what most people refer to as a drone license. It’s technically not a license, but he did not have his Part 107. Do I think they would have been easier on him if he did have his Part 107? No, I don’t think so, because that would be even worse, knowing the rules and still breaking them, which effectively he did. I guess because he was informed of the rules, he was educated and told that what he was doing was wrong. Although, I think he knew what he was doing was wrong in the first place.

They came to him and said, “Look, this is really bad, and you need to stop doing it.” He’s like, “Okay,” and then he just kept doing it. Mikey was doing all of these things with his drones for views; that’s it. When people watched because it was kind of entertaining sometimes, that just motivated him to continue to break the law in his videos.

Consequences for Michael DiCiurcio

Mikey plays a character, and the goal of his channel was to entertain, put smiles on people’s faces, and just be kind of a goofy character. But his desire to continue to feed the monster has now cost him pretty much everything—his channel, his hobby, and his source of revenue. Part of the terms of the recently announced consent judgment calls for Michael DiCiurcio to agree that he will never operate any drone of any type, size, or model, nor will he ever seek any type of certification or license to operate any type or form of a drone for the rest of his life. Mikey can never fly a drone, and if he gets caught, he’s going to prison.

Number two: he was forced to take down his YouTube channel known as Philly Drone Life and can no longer operate or resurrect his content or any part of it in any form. He lost his YouTube channel, and that’s already been done.

Number three: he has to abandon his drones and other items that he surrendered to the FAA in the spring of 2024. That’s right, he had to give them all of his drones and all of his related gear.

So many people supported Mikey when he first informed his viewers of his financial troubles. They cried foul and said the FAA was just being a big bully and handing down egregious fines for a guy just trying to have fun and make a few bucks. But they were only listening to and seeing Mikey’s side of the story, and they didn’t know the details of why it got to be as high and as serious as it did.

I will say this: I don’t think Mikey is a bad guy. I actually think he’s pretty nice, and he genuinely likes to make people laugh. But at the same time, he pulled some pretty stupid stunts, pushing the limits without regard to the law. I think he does deserve everything that he got. If you ask me, I think he got off pretty good with this deal—no fines, no prison time; that’s a win. It could have been so much worse.

So word to the wise: if you do something illegal with a drone, whether it’s intentional or by accident (because there are a lot of rules out there), there are a lot of places you shouldn’t be flying, and there are a lot of things you shouldn’t be doing with your drone. Most people don’t understand it, but if you do those things and you get caught by the FAA or somebody reports you, and they come to your door or send an email or a phone call or whatever, my advice is to quit doing those things. If you don’t, we could be reading about you in the news one day.

Final Thoughts on Philly Drone Life

I used to feel a little bad for Mikey, because it genuinely did hurt him; you could see it when he would do interviews. He’d go on other YouTube channels or on his own channel, and he would talk about that fine that was handed down, and I felt kind of sorry for him, right, because he honestly was just trying to have fun. But then after I learned, like, dude, how many times were you contacted, and how many times did you just keep doing it?

I think I watched a video of him one day—I don’t know if it was on a live stream or whatever—but he’s complaining about his fine, saying he’s just trying to have a little fun and make some money, and then the very next day, he did a Drone Video again, doing something very, very illegal. Like, dude, you had so many chances! So, I quit feeling sorry for him, and I’m just like, you know what, this guy needs to pay for what he’s doing, and he needs to be made an example of, because that’s the type of behavior that makes it bad for the rest of us. The reason the government and the people hate drones so much is because of things like that. And so, people like that need to be—like, they need to answer to what they’ve done.

I don’t know, this will be very interesting, you guys, but I want to know in the comments. I want to know your opinion. What do you think about Mikey’s penalties? Do you think it was too harsh, or is it appropriate for what he did? Let me know; that’ll be fun to watch!

So hit that like button as you leave the video today. I do appreciate that; it really helps the video move, and then watch this video next to see another controversial topic about drones. Have a great day, everyone! And, as always, fly safe and fly smart.