FAA investigating armed drone video

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 An 18-year-old from Connecticut has posted a video on YouTube showing a small drone hovering about ten of fifteen feet above ground in a wooded area while a gun strapped to it was firing shots.

The FAA said it was investigating whether Austin Haughwout of Clinton violated the agency’s regulations, which ban the careless or reckless operation of a model aircraft.

The Washington Post has reported that Haughwout’s father told a local TV station last week that his son built the drone with the help of a Central Connecticut State University professor. The 14-second video shows a four-propeller drone with a semiautomatic handgun strapped on top hovering as it fires four shots in a wooded area.

The FAA said it is cooperating with Clinton police in the investigation.

Haghwout already has a history with incidents regarding drones when police charged a woman with assault after she physically confronted him when he was flying a drone at a state beach. Andrea Mears of Westbrook, who became irritated with Haughwout’s drone buzzing her and her family, was sentenced to probation in July 2014. A video Haughwout posted showed Mears calling him a pervert, striking him, and ripping his shirt.

Haughwout told the court that he had been using the remote-controlled quadcopter to get footage of the landscape from about fifty feet above the beach when Mears attacked him.