A drone crash at a Payson wedding shoot changed my whole backup plan

So last month I was covering a wedding ceremony up in Payson and the couple wanted this dramatic aerial shot of them walking out of the chapel. I sent my drone up, everything was going smooth, and then this random gust of wind just slammed it into a pine tree. The drone dropped straight into the parking lot and shattered the gimbal. The footage was on the SD card but the impact cracked the card reader slot, so I couldnt get the files out until I got home and pried the card out with a multitool. Meanwhile the bride was laughing but her mom was not, she kept saying what do you mean its stuck in the tree. I ended up having to use my backup camera for the rest of the shoot and I got lucky because the card survived. Has anyone else had a drone fail mid-job and how do you handle the awkward gap while you recover? I now always pre-fly the wind patterns around any venue before the actual ceremony, which probably sounds paranoid but it saved me last weekend near Fountain Hills.

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lucas9724d ago

Prying an SD card out with a multitool is nuts, glad it survived.