I live on the south shore of Long Island and the south of town is on the water. There is a triad of a marina/boat ramp, a golf course and a huge 20 acre sewage treatment plant.
I was on flight #178 with a Mini 2 at the marina filming a friend launching his new boat at the boat ramp. I finished and was returning home to land when all of a sudden, my drone took off toward the sewage plant and at 111 feet spun out of control and crashed just on the other side of a 2 foot thick, 15 foot high concrete wall erected around the plant after it was ravaged by high tides in 2012 by hurricane Sandy. There is still major construction happening with bulldozers, cranes, backhoes, etc.
I thought, “that’s it, it’s long gone, they’ll never let me search for it inside the high security compound.” But I decided with nothing to lose… why not ask, drove to the main security gate and mentioned what happened. They called a supervisor over in a colored vest and hard hat and I showed him the flight path on my iPad and that it crashed just on the other side of the wall in the southwestern most corner of the facility. The guy seemed fascinated! We drove in my truck through the whole facility to that area and for an hour we looked everywhere, climbed to the roof of 3 different 4 story buildings, etc. The last photo received was of my drone on top of some bright yellow rolled hose so we kept looking for that, but to no avail. He was obsessed with figuring out where that yellow hose could be… (see photo)
He asked for my info, took a screenshot of the yellow hose from my iPad and said he was going to e-mail everyone at the facility asking, “who knows where this hose is?”. I left figuring that was the end of that.
Two hours later he calls me saying, “we found your drone, come and get it, you won’t believe where it was”. One of the last images I saw before it crashed was a square white street sweeper cleaning along the perimeter of the property just inside the wall near where my drone crashed. (bottom left in photo) It ends up my mini 2 came spiraling in and hit his windshield. He got out, picked it up, and put it in the back of his sweeper on the yellow hose used to fill his tank from a fire hydrant. The only damage was a broken right front motor arm and some broken props which I can replace for $24.00 on amazon. But the most amazing part was the eagerness of everyone at the facility to help me find my drone. They could have just as easily said, “Look this is a secure facility with 100 construction workers operating all kinds of heavy equipment. We don’t have time to help you.” Instead, they really went above and beyond anything I could have imagined.
I was on flight #178 with a Mini 2 at the marina filming a friend launching his new boat at the boat ramp. I finished and was returning home to land when all of a sudden, my drone took off toward the sewage plant and at 111 feet spun out of control and crashed just on the other side of a 2 foot thick, 15 foot high concrete wall erected around the plant after it was ravaged by high tides in 2012 by hurricane Sandy. There is still major construction happening with bulldozers, cranes, backhoes, etc.
I thought, “that’s it, it’s long gone, they’ll never let me search for it inside the high security compound.” But I decided with nothing to lose… why not ask, drove to the main security gate and mentioned what happened. They called a supervisor over in a colored vest and hard hat and I showed him the flight path on my iPad and that it crashed just on the other side of the wall in the southwestern most corner of the facility. The guy seemed fascinated! We drove in my truck through the whole facility to that area and for an hour we looked everywhere, climbed to the roof of 3 different 4 story buildings, etc. The last photo received was of my drone on top of some bright yellow rolled hose so we kept looking for that, but to no avail. He was obsessed with figuring out where that yellow hose could be… (see photo)
He asked for my info, took a screenshot of the yellow hose from my iPad and said he was going to e-mail everyone at the facility asking, “who knows where this hose is?”. I left figuring that was the end of that.
Two hours later he calls me saying, “we found your drone, come and get it, you won’t believe where it was”. One of the last images I saw before it crashed was a square white street sweeper cleaning along the perimeter of the property just inside the wall near where my drone crashed. (bottom left in photo) It ends up my mini 2 came spiraling in and hit his windshield. He got out, picked it up, and put it in the back of his sweeper on the yellow hose used to fill his tank from a fire hydrant. The only damage was a broken right front motor arm and some broken props which I can replace for $24.00 on amazon. But the most amazing part was the eagerness of everyone at the facility to help me find my drone. They could have just as easily said, “Look this is a secure facility with 100 construction workers operating all kinds of heavy equipment. We don’t have time to help you.” Instead, they really went above and beyond anything I could have imagined.
