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Mavic drone crashed into my friends truck. How do I find the owner?

Incinr8

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So My buddy is driving up a major street in his truck when he see's a drone in front of him at the last second. Boom, He blasts it at about 30 MPH. The drone was recovered. How do I find out who owns it? He's bringing it by tomorrow.
 
I suppose it depends on what your friend wants from the drone owner, if anything.

Not sure inspecting it (or going through info) is the best idea if your friend is wanting to get recovery for any damages to his vehicle.
If so, maybe taking it to the local police station could be the best idea.

Otherwise, if simply wanting to get it back to its owner . . .
Checking out the photos on the micro SD card (if not an M2P just using internal memory, unlikely) as a lot of people fly from home, or record things like their number plates when taking off or landing.

Some will have contact info on the drone, or in the battery compartment.
It may have a registration number sticker on it, not sure if this is now mandatory in the US, or if it comes in soon (?).
If so, legal avenues through the police (for civil damages) may be possible, or FAA for (possibly) flying irresponsibly.

It could be a fly away (happens often) or some other loss of control that has happened as to why it was flying where it was.

Please let us know what you eventually find and results of owner contact.
 
If you are in the US, yes, it should be registered and labeled with the registration number on it.
Should begin with the letter "F".
If not visible from the outside (which it should be), remove the battery on top. Maybe contact info there.
If nothing is there, then you have a few of choices:
Place an ad on Craigslist, that way you might get him/her to come to you. and if you have vehicle damage, report it to the police, and your insurance company at the same time, and let Law Enforcement know exactly what you are doing. Take pictures of it.

And the operator was operating it in a dangerous/careless manner, and maybe he doesn't deserve a Mavic.
Getting my message?????
 
And the operator was operating it in a dangerous/careless manner, and maybe he doesn't deserve a Mavic.
Getting my message?????
I wouldn’t go that far unless I knew exactly what happened
for it being where it was.
 
I wouldn’t go that far unless I knew exactly what happened
for it being where it was.
Quite true. Let’s not put the cart before the horse! Regardless, the drone owner should ‘man up’ and pay for the truck damage. It’s called being a responsible owner. If the drone is registered, the last thing the owner wants is to remain silent. Remaining silent gives us all a black eye! Good advice was given to check the Reg number and the micro SD. Hopefully the drone owner will come through.
 
If you are in the US, yes, it should be registered and labeled with the registration number on it.
Should begin with the letter "F".
If not visible from the outside (which it should be), remove the battery on top. Maybe contact info there.
If nothing is there, then you have a few of choices:
Place an ad on Craigslist, that way you might get him/her to come to you. and if you have vehicle damage, report it to the police, and your insurance company at the same time, and let Law Enforcement know exactly what you are doing. Take pictures of it.

And the operator was operating it in a dangerous/careless manner, and maybe he doesn't deserve a Mavic.
Getting my message?????
Unless it’s a MM.
 
Quite true. Let’s not put the cart before the horse! Regardless, the drone owner should ‘man up’ and pay for the truck damage. It’s called being a responsible owner. If the drone is registered, the last thing the owner wants is to remain silent. Remaining silent gives us all a black eye! Good advice was given to check the Reg number and the micro SD. Hopefully the drone owner will come through.
Well I hope so also but something just don’t feel right about this. We don’t know really if it was even any damage as
we havnt seen no pictures and the op has only 3 post.
Now he made a thread selling and then posted sold.
No post in between or nothing. Could be someone messaged him and bought it I don’t know.
So everthing so far is just based on assumptions.
Not going to say this didn’t happen but as for me I need
to see pictures.
Now if it had been me driving and that happened and it had caused damage I would have not moved unless I was blocking traffic and just reported it to LE just for my insurance if nothing else and let it go from there .
You see where I’m going so no need to write it all out.
Hopefully the op will post back with more info.
 
How much damage? I know just repairing a newer car windshield can easily be over $500, and if [Edit: he was flying 107 and] its over $500 damage to the truck or other property (not the drone), the pilot also has to file a FAA incident report.
 
Last edited:
Well I hope so also but something just don’t feel right about this. We don’t know really if it was even any damage as
we havnt seen no pictures and the op has only 3 post.
Now he made a thread selling and then posted sold.
No post in between or nothing. Could be someone messaged him and bought it I don’t know.
So everthing so far is just based on assumptions.
Not going to say this didn’t happen but as for me I need
to see pictures.
Now if it had been me driving and that happened and it had caused damage I would have not moved unless I was blocking traffic and just reported it to LE just for my insurance if nothing else and let it go from there .
You see where I’m going so no need to write it all out.
Hopefully the op will post back with more info.

I just saw this post while I was writing my other one, should have waited.
 
I just saw this post while I was writing my other one, should have waited.
Hey it happens all the time to me also .
 
IMO - no need to go to the police. As said before, pull battery and check for phone number or something

Yea right.....

Something crashes into my car or truck and causes damage I'm calling the police. At a minimum I want a record of what happened for my insurance claim
 
Of course it has a registration number on the outside as required, after all, the FAA tells us that the difficult part is not getting the drone, it is matching it to the owner. Also, why are people recommending pulling the battery? According to the FAA this poses an issue as it could be rigged to explode.
 
How much damage? I know just repairing a windshield can easily be over $500, and if its over $500 damage to the truck or other property (not the drone), the pilot also has to file a FAA incident report.
“the pilot also has to file a FAA incident report”
Was the owner of the drone flying 107 or not?
The only references, I can locate, that deal with reporting of drone accidents, deal specifically with Part 107. Please educate me on recreational accidents. Are recreational drone accidents a (non-FAA) civil matter?
 
Of course it has a registration number on the outside as required, after all, the FAA tells us that the difficult part is not getting the drone, it is matching it to the owner. Also, why are people recommending pulling the battery? According to the FAA this poses an issue as it could be rigged to explode.
Now your trying to turn this into something it isn’t about and let’s not .
Guys let’s not stray from the actual topic. This isn’t going to turn into no long thread with no more to go on then what was said in just the opening post.
 
So My buddy is driving up a major street in his truck when he see's a drone in front of him at the last second. Boom, He blasts it at about 30 MPH. The drone was recovered. How do I find out who owns it? He's bringing it by tomorrow.


Unless they put their contact information ON the aircraft there aren't a lot of options for you. If it has an FAA# on it then the local Law Enforcement can contact the FAA and possibly track the owner/registrant down. Without that information your mostly out of luck.

You could post it on FB (local groups) saying Found Drone and post a description of it. I would have made sure to have a Police Report on file from the incident before I left the scene just in case.
 
“the pilot also has to file a FAA incident report”
Was the owner of the drone flying 107 or not?
The only references, I can locate, that deal with reporting of drone accidents, deal specifically with Part 107. Please educate me on recreational accidents. Are recreational drone accidents a (non-FAA) civil matter?
You are right, accident report if 107
 
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If there was damage, I would file a police report to make it easier to file an insurance claim. Without any other information from the OP, that's about all you can suggest. If the truck wasn't damaged, I would post a message on Nextdoor.com, Facebook, and Craigslist. If he lives close by, he could put up a flyer near where he hit the drone. It would probably be helpful for the OP to post some pictures of the damage to the truck and what's left of the drone.
 
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