The defendant has agreed to pay more than $65,000 in restitution and faces up to a year in federal prison, prosecutors said.

A Southern California man admitted to operating a drone that collided with a firefighting airplane during the Palisades Fire as the blaze was charring tens of thousands of acres earlier this month, officials said Friday.

A Culver City man has agreed to plead guilty to crashing a drone into a Super Scooper aircraft making water drops over the deadly Palisades Fire, grounding the powerful firefighting aircraft early into the battle against the growing wildfire.