you can’t have rules where it’s okay to break them if nobody gets hurt. You can’t have investigative agencies where it’s okay to lie and obstruct them so long as there was no harm done.

If you skip the penalties in a case like this, you encourage people to do the very things your regulations exist to prevent if they think they it probably won’t harm anyone.

You’re not allowed to deliberately crash a plane without telling the FAA. You’re certainly not allowed to do it into random public land. You’re not allowed to send a plane out of control deliberately.

Those are incredibly dangerous things to do.

If you do those things and are lucky enough not to start a wildfire or kill anyone then there still have to be consequences.

And if you try to avoid those consequences then that needs to be punished too.