Careless drone flyer could have killed me

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I was walking around 6pm at All Seasons Place, Bangkok last Wednesday evening when an 'object' came tumbling down from the sky and crashing to the floor a few meters in front of me in the path I was walking. Another object hit a close by car. If I had been walking just a little faster it could easily have hit me on the head. I ran to hide in a small alcove of the building not even knowing what it was at first. After carefully then looking I recognized it was a DJI Phantom Mavic Pro that had been crashed into the building and fallen to the ground. The battery was missing so guessing that may have what hit the car.
The careless irresponsible pilot was flying close to the commercial heart of Bangkok where there is the American embassy and American ambassador residence in the immediate vicinity and lots of tall buildings.
If anyone can help me I took photo of the serial number of the drone and I took out the memory card as I wanted to try and find where they flew from (I did not feel bad to do this given what nearly happened to me in that incident). The memory card has Apple Mac signature files on so if someone knows how to decipher this it may have the apple machine serial there too. I also contacted the security there at the time.
From the video files:
8th Jan + 18th March: Flying at Salisbury School close to Washington.
19th Feb: Assawoman Bay at Maryland
9th June: Was flying very close to the Brooklyn bridge in New York.
14th June: Flying in center of Bangkok. Was not recording at the time of this flight.

There is also a picture in the memory card of the pilot (and his girlfriend) operating the drone from a beach. They both look of Asian descent (Korean or Chinese looking)

Sadly it's the idiots like this that may well tighten the screws by authorities for the good and more careful people.
 

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Don't do wrong in an effort to be right :)
 
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or you could just get on with your life and not try to get someone in trouble.
Your post is misguided bordering on ignorant. I was not suggesting what the original poster should do, rather- I was attempting to answer his question by offering a suggestion about what he might do given his apparent intent in his post.

I would have stayed in the area for a bit if time allowed to see if the owner came looking for the AC with the intent of learning what the cause of the accident/malfunction might have been.
 
The cause is not relevant at all. The pilot made the decision to risk his Mavic(big deal).and in doing so risk causing someone serious injury .When you are flying a UAV you're not at risk at all the people below are.

I wonder how you would feel if something like this killed or injured someone you knew . Would you say "Ah well life's full of risk we all have to live with that ,but have some compassion for the poor guy who's just lost his Mavic"

I am not someone who usually jumps on the "Safety/Rules " bandwagon but if something like this caused an injury to me or my family I would be doing everything I could to find the person and financial compensation or the law would be the last thing on my mind.
 
To be honest it could have been a malfunction or a loose prop or bird strike. I don't think this guy intentionally spent £1000+ on a drone to purposely crash it, hurting/killing someone then getting jail time.

No doubt it was not intentional - just like drink driving car accidents are not - really not the point at all. IMHO question is did pilot take reasonable steps to avoid damage to persons and or property (like not flying over people or built up area) - it appears he/she did not, lets not sugar coat stupid actions.
 
No doubt it was not intentional - just like drink driving car accidents are not - really not the point at all. IMHO question is did pilot take reasonable steps to avoid damage to persons and or property (like not flying over people or built up area) - it appears he/she did not, lets not sugar coat stupid actions.
Have you seen the location he flew? Any chance that

1) in bangkok it could be legal to do that


2) he may have flown in open water and then got a compass error.

3) the person did have permission to fly and there was a voltage drop in battery

4) could even be a DJI member doing a shoot and gained permission

Not sugar coating anything. I just think its stupid to go and point the finger at someone when you wasn't there in person to see what happened
 
I never mentioned legal, I don't know, nor claimed to what is legal there. He/may have been in open water that's true. My point was, and surely we agree, pilot is always accountable, that's all - regardless of reason for accident. Proactively taking steps to minimise risk / damage, when an accident (examples of which you describe) happens is what I was advocating.

None of us were there except OP, again I claimed no greater knowledge - my words were 'it appears' based on what OP stated.
 
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'The Springs' was the only reply that connected with me. A bunch of replies didn't even seem to read the original message properly.

It was in the heart of a city. Not open water. There may well be compass errors when flying close to buildings but that doesn't mean it was the compass error that was really the issue.

This is the building in question. I was walking behind and alongside the left tower when the drone came tumbling down.
http://officespacebangkok.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/All-Seasons-Place-Wide-NoBUG.jpg

And people suggest the drone may have had a problem and don't consider the pilot was just a tad careless to fly in such a built-up place. Right opposite here is the American ambassador residence and the area is surrounded by foreign embassies.
http://conradhotels3.hilton.com/res...US/img/shared/basic_content_item/CN_map01.jpg

My point of this post is partly to vent (sorry about that). I'm just upset that people who care about this hobby and have been in it for some time (I built my own RC helicopter about 17 years ago) are seeing their hobby get a bad rep. I wonder if DJI will add more safeguards into future models for 360' auto-braking? I'm fairly sure the drone hit the building as the battery was not in it when i picked it up and a part which hit a car as with a loud bang which suggests it fell from some height and was presumably that.
 
Obviously there was failure. The first was the pilot's judgement.
No respect for the possibility of aircraft failure or the safety of others and or their property.
 
Your post is misguided bordering on ignorant..
No it wasnt. Choosing to mind your own business is an option. I would suggest in this circumstance it's a good option.

I would have stayed in the area for a bit if time allowed to see if the owner came looking for the AC with the intent of learning what the cause of the accident/malfunction might have been.
So when the owner did come along what would you do then? This is where it could go south pretty quickly. I know what your intention is but... wouldnt that be better left to the authorities. Just my .02 I'm guessing trying to take matters into your own hands and investigate is a bad idea. Especially, if you are not native to Thailand.
 
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or you could just get on with your life and not try to get someone in trouble.
in my opinion this is the absolute best option. Move along, nothing to see here. Unless you actually witnessed the damage and there was property damage. If that was the case, hang around and provide a statement to the "Thai authorities." Otherwise...
 
The cause is not relevant at all. The pilot made the decision to risk his Mavic(big deal)...
How do you know this....? Are you assuming??
 
If anyone can help you do what?

Take the AC to the authorities and provide them with a statement describing your account of the incident if you are hoping for an investigation and that some action maybe taken against the operator.
This seems like the sensible option and is probably the one i would follow. Especially since I'm a citizen of the United States. There is no way I would be playing "Dirty Harry" in Thailand. You could end up in a very unfortunate circumstance doing that. Didn't we just get a guy back from Korea who decided to take a banner... Yeah... i'm probably not getting involved unless there is significant property damage or an injury. Not an imaginary injury or a supposed injury but a real injury.
 
No it wasnt. Choosing to mind your own business is an option. I would suggest in this circumstance it's a good option.


So when the owner did come along what would you do then? This is where it could go south pretty quickly. I know what your intention is but... wouldnt that be better left to the authorities. Just my .02 I'm guessing trying to take matters into your own hands and investigate is a bad idea. Especially, if you are not native to Thailand.
Mojo you took my response to hit-n-run entirely out of context. You might have read my earlier response to the OP, perhaps you might take the time to do that.

I have the OP a suggestion specific to his question, I would not be running off to the authorities in the circumstances depicted.

And I certainly didn't suggest I would be conducting an form of investigation with the intent of exposing the operator to civil or criminal sanction. Proposing I might attempt o re-unite the operator with his/her AC and perhaps learn for my own benefit what caused the incident is hardly unreasonable.
 
So You stole his card....... watch every car that passes you on the road. They could hit you as well but then don't...... yet.
It was an accident dude. He is probably still looking for his drone.
 
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To be honest it could have been a malfunction or a loose prop or bird strike. I don't think this guy intentionally spent £1000+ on a drone to purposely crash it, hurting/killing someone then getting jail time.
Having one and being on the Mavic forum what I am seeing is the battery not latching correctly and coming out in flight on some. Being the OP said it was missing it and thought that's what hit the car that might be what happened .
Just saying .
 
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