An off-duty RCMP officer who clipped a Fulda rental SUV with the wing of his private airplane at 200 kilometres an hour pleaded guilty to the crime Tuesday afternoon.

Const. Jean Michel Sauve was "buzzing” the Fulda event being held on Fish Lake in January when the left wing of his Tundra aircraft struck the vehicle in the parking area at the end of the Fish Lake Road.

Evidence was put before territorial court Judge Karen Ruddy yesterday.

The judge heard there were no injuries.

She also heard that expert investigators for Transport Canada who examined the aircraft were amazed the wing did not fall off, and that Sauve was able to pilot his Tundra back to the airport.

Vancouver Crown prosecutor John Cliffe is asking the judge for a criminal conviction under the Criminal Code of Canada for the dangerous operation of an airplane.

He is also seeking a $4,000 fine, and an order that Sauve pay The Driving Force auto dealer the remaining $8,039 to cover the damage to the rental vehicle.

Also troubling was that Sauve, a traffic cop, was less than forthcoming about immediately reporting the incident to authorities, Cliffe suggested to the court.

Edmonton defence lawyer Nic Weigelt argued for a conditional discharge. He said it would fulfill the court's need to send a message while keeping a potentially career-ending criminal conviction from the constable's employment record.

Sauve, said Weigelt, made a poor judgment, but it shouldn't ruin an otherwise stellar standing as a local RCMP officer with a long history of community service in several sectors before and after joining the police force 10 years ago.

His client, he told the judge, was after-all legitimately surveying the lake surface for a safe place to land.

Weigelt presented the court with 12 letters of reference to indicate how Sauve – a private pilot, not an RCMP pilot – is highly regarded by other pilots and those who've flown and worked with him.

The judge reserved her decision until June 7.

The day before the incident, Ruddy heard, Sauve, in his capacity as a member of the RCMP M Division's traffic division, provided the participants of the Fulda Challenge with a briefing on safe driving in the Yukon.

Ruddy was presented with footage seized from a camera mounted on the airplane. She saw a video recorded from the ground by a participant in the Fulda Challenge.

Shortly after departing the Whitehorse airport at 3:42 p.m. Jan. 11, Sauve and a friend flew to Fish Lake, with his friend and fellow private pilot at the controls for the first pass over the lake.

Sauve was piloting the aircraft for the next three passes over the crowd.

Investigators used GPS tracking equipment on the aircraft to provide precise calculations regarding the elevation and speed of the aircraft, calculations which were presented to the judge.

On Sauve's first pass, the aircraft was travelling 198 kilometres per hour (123 miles per hour) at 29 feet above the frozen lake, evidence shows.

On his second pass, he was travelling 206 kmh (128 mph) at 36 feet above the lake.

On the third pass, Sauve was travelling 200 kmh (124 mph) at 34 feet above the lake.

The video taken from the ground shows the plane coming up the lake, travelling northward toward the parking lot at the end of the Fish Lake Road where several vehicles are parked.

No more than two seconds after flying over four people down on the lake, the aircraft collides with a vehicle the parking lot, which is at a higher in elevation than the lake. A piece of debris goes flying by the front of the camera, as the aircraft continues on and flys away.

Cliffe told the judge the RCMP received a phone call from Fulda organizer Holger Bergold at 3:54 p.m. about an aircraft buzzing people on the lake that had just collided with one of his rental vehicles.

"At 4:14 on January 11, 2013, Mr. Bergold called the RCMP dispatch in Whitehorse again and requested that his complaint be cancelled as he was aware of who the pilot was and that they would deal with it privately,” the prosecutor told Ruddy.

"As a result of Mr. Bergold's call, his earlier complaint was not assigned to an investigator.”

Cliffe said it was only upon the following Monday's review of the calls received over the weekend, including Bergold's two phone calls on the Friday afternoon, that a investigation was launched.

After the collision, Sauve flew back to the airport and landed at approximately 4 p.m.

"During the return portion of the flight, the accused and his friend concentrated on flying the aircraft so as to put the least amount of stress on it, as they did not know at the time the extent of the aircraft's damage as a result of the collision,” the prosecutor told Ruddy.

At the airport hangar, Sauve was seen talking on his cell phone by his friend, who described Sauve as being in hurry, the judge heard. She was told he drove back to Fish Lake to meet with the Fulda people, some of whom he'd befriended the day before.

The Crown prosecutor told the judge Sauve did not report the accident to the air traffic control tower, to Transport Canada nor the Transportation Safety Board, though he did record the collision it in the aircraft log book.

Sauve's defence lawyer told the court his client was under the impression the matter had been reported by the Fulda representative.

It was two days after the investigation was given a file number on Monday, Jan. 14 that Sauve called the investigating officer from Singapore, where he was vacationing, to ask if the officer was looking for him, the judge heard.

The prosecutor said the investigator told Sauve he searching for him, but told him an investigation into the incident had begun.

In arguing for a criminal conviction, Cliffe produced evidence from two separate flights last year when Sauve took RCMP friends for a ride.

During one flight, he flew to within 40 feet of the surface of Lake Laberge and buzzed the home of some friends in a subdivision north of Whitehorse, he told the judge.

Cliffe said the officers said they were uncomfortable, and told Sauve that.

During another flight in February 2012 with two other off-duty officer on board, Sauve buzzed friends playing hockey on Fish Lake, he told the judge.

"Both individuals stated that the accused flew so low to the surface of the ice that you could see the faces and expressions of the players,” Cliffe said.

"Both also stated they felt uncomfortable during that portion of the flight.”

Cliffe said told Ruddy it was difficult to find previous cases and examples of appropriate sentencing, as dangerous operation of an aircraft contrary to the Criminal Code is not at all common.

In the case of a crop duster accidentally crashing into a truck on the highway in Alberta and killing the driver, the court was left with no option but to put the pilot in jail, he said.

Cliffe said of a young commercial pilot in the Northwest Territories who killed a friend who asked him to fly low so he could take pictures was sentenced to nine months in jail. A gust of wind had caught the aircraft at the last moment, he told the judge.

Cliffe said Sauve's actions on Jan. 1, though not lethal, were deliberate and could have ended much worse than they did.

The court, he argued, needs to punish Sauve, and it needs to send a message to the public, or risk shaking the public's confidence in the justice system.

The defence lawyer, on the other hand, said Sauve has paid the price, both professionally and socially in the community.

Financially, there is the $40,000 damage to his aircraft, a potential of $50,000 in fines to Transport Canada, and the $9,800 to Driving Force for repairs to the vehicle, $1,500 of which has already been paid, Weigelt said.

He said Sauve would have paid more, but he was waiting to hear from his aircraft insurance company, though he has since abandoned that avenue.

Sauve, he said, has been an outstanding member of the Whitehorse community, and has an unblemished record as a police officer.

A criminal record instead of an unconditional discharge would change all that, he said.

Weigelt told the judge there is no law against flying low, except over buildings and people.

And while there was a gathering on Fish Lake, Sauve was legitimately surveying the lake conditions for a save place to land, he said.

RCMP Const. Christine Grant said this morning there is an ongoing internal disciplinary review of Sauve's conduct. He remains on duty but was assigned to an administration desk after he was charged. He remains on administrative duties pending the outcome of the review, which will take into consideration the court proceedings and the decision of the court, said the RCMP spokeswoman.

Whitehorse RCMP Sgt. Mark London was in court Tuesday afternoon to witness the sentencing hearing, which took 2.5 hours.