Part 107 UAS pilot reported gun shot fired at the UAS during flight by a person who indicated the UAS was flying by their property. The UAS was not damaged.

Date: 2024-09 · Aircraft: Small UAS (At or above 0.55 lbs and less than 55 lbs)

Anomalies: deviation-discrepancy-procedural-security|inflight-event-encounter-other-unknown|no-specific-anomaly-occurred-unwanted-situation

Synopsis

Part 107 UAS pilot reported gun shot fired at the UAS during flight by a person who indicated the UAS was flying by their property. The UAS was not damaged.

Narrative

Company X is a nonprofit that provides fire protection services. Authorized to provide emergency services. As public outreach - We often assist the public with animal rescues or domestic animal rescue.On Day 0 at approx XB:00 - We were operating a UAS - AGL was about 250 with strobes illuminated.We had been operating in the area since XA:15. The community was fully aware that a drone was operating in the area and our marked vehicles was directly off a state route with cones on display for Landing Zone (LZ) as well as 5 onlookers and 1 UAS pilot. We were operating under [Part] 107.NOTE: This region is part of a MOA and authorization and confirmation that MOA was cold was done via tower on recorded line.Man who arrived on scene and obviously intoxicated indicated we were flying by his property. I advised him this was legal.UAS was visually inspected for damage and none was seen to airframe or props.This report is being made here to document a gun shot at a sUAS device by a shotgun and this was confirmed to be in our direction since we could hear the pellets landing around us on metal roofs of buildings and the vehicles parked at the Facility right next store.Company X mission is to bring emergency robotic response to rural communities throughout the state - This is our 4th gunshot at drones in the past several months.There needs to be MORE education for the general public alerting them to the criminal nature of shooting at drones in addition to educating them on this emerging technology.Moreover - There has been a wealth of misinformation regarding private property and people believing that they can shoot at aircraft. There must be a media campaign to disprove this tribal misinformation.

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.