Tommy Lee's Chopper PilotCharged With Reckless Flying

Fri 4th Aug, 2006 in International News

The helicopter pilot for former Motley Crue drummer, Tommy Lee, has been charged with, among other things, reckless flying.

It is alleged that David Keith Martz, aged forty-nine, landed the helicopter outside a house on the seventh of July to collect Lee and take him on a fifty mile flight to a Nine Inch Nails concert in Irvine, before returning a couple of hours later.

Officers with the police department’s Air Support Division, alerted by calls, spotted the helicopter hovering above the home and watched as the pilot landed on the street and went into the house. They notified Martz that he had illegally landed on a public roadway, but Martz, Lee and two other passengers got into the aircraft and flew South.

Mr Martz will appear in court faced with three charges, one count of reckless flying, one count of landing an aircraft on a public road and one count of landing an aircraft without a permit. Each of these charges carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a US$1,000 fine.Tommy Lee’s publicist, Dvora Vener Englefield, said that Lee would not be making any public comment on the matter