Recovered Video Footage of Drone Crash on the River

in #drone6 years ago (edited)

The first time I flew my DJI Phantom 4, it was nearly destroyed from crashing into the Colorado River in San Marcos, TX!

Watch the recovered video footage on DLive.
https://dlive.io/video/nathanedge/8f79a117-a6b7-11e8-bd4b-0242ac110003

Special thanks to @pearlcharles for providing the instrumental to her song 'All The Boys' for the drone video!

The maximum flight time for a Phantom 4 is 28 minutes, and this is a story about the time I took it to the absolute limit, while shooting out at a local music festival.
DJI_0026.JPG
The week my drone arrived in the mail, was the week of Float Fest. The idea of Float Fest is to float down the Colorado River in an inner-tube, and at the end, you hop out of the water and stroll into a music festival. It's a pretty unique concept.

I remember when Float Fest launched, it really blew my mind, because they combined two of my favorite activities:

  1. Getting drunk on a lazy river
  2. Raging at a music festival

Needless to say I was super excited and eager to get out there and create some amazing content!

My goal was to make a video that captured the full festival experience. I flew down the river, passing over countless tubers, which resembled a river of fruit-loops from the birds eye view. I had flown earlier that day, so my battery was already low. I flew as far down the river as I could, until a notification popped up, telling me to return home.
DJI_0013.JPG
30% seemed like a lot of battery life to me... So, I naively shrugged my shoulders, tapped 'ignore' and continued to fly towards the campgrounds. I just wanted to get back to the festival and shoot some seamless footage at that location, before ending the flight. Every 5% decrease, the drone reminded me to go home, and every time I would simply ignore the notification.

DJI_0015.JPG

I successfully made it back to the festival like I wanted, but then I had a BIG problem... The drone engaged an EMERGENCY LANDING! I tried to fight it, but my attempts proved futile. The drone was relentlessly dropping from the sky at a faster and faster rate. Once I realized that I had lost the altitude control, I panned the camera down and discovered that I was descending directly above the water. I scrambled! With maybe 30 seconds to react, I sent the drone darting randomly into the direction of the closest open field. I didn't even know where the drone was at this point, I couldn't see it, all I knew was that I couldn't let it hit the water or an innocent bystander. I sure didn't want the drone to get confiscated or stolen either.
DJI_0009.JPG
Luckily, I crashed the drone behind a tent, and no-one seemed to really notice, as the camera twitched from side-to-side in the tall grass. However, it landed on the opposite side of the river from where I had taken off... I set the controller down and swam across the river. Frantically, I ran up and down the banks looking for the drone, but I couldn't find it anywhere. After about 20 minutes, I gave up, and swam back across the water to review the video footage again. I recognized the massive pile of tubes and the blue tent where the drone came down, and thought I had a good idea of where the drone might be. Once again, I swam across the river in search of the drone. Low and behold, there it was sitting all by its lonesome! It wasn't until I crossed the river one more time, carrying the drone above my head, that I had finally completed the drone rescue. I looked around and I could tell everyone was watching, hoping I might just drop it in the water, but I didn't.

I took a well deserved break, and then popped in a fresh battery to capture some magical night footage.

Chromeo was performing when I took this shot.
DJI_0033.JPG

Watch the recovered video footage on DLive.
https://dlive.io/video/nathanedge/8f79a117-a6b7-11e8-bd4b-0242ac110003
Special thanks to @pearlcharles for providing the instrumental to her song 'All The Boys' for the drone video!

After this whole fiasco, I vowed to always return home for now on when the drone notifies me to do so :)

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Glad the drone made it back to you! Thanks for using my song @nathanedge

That was a very cool video. The Float Fest sounds amazing.

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