What on earth were they doing flying over a crowd? That is so sad to see -- I hope nobody was hurt. And, of course, they've damaged the copter community too. Andy.
They were filming for the X--Factor UK TV show. The pilot was flying over the Thames River so he wasn't over the crowd. He deliberatley flew the chopper into the river after there was some sort of flight control issue. No one was hurt and they recovered the camera after hiring a scuba diver to retrieve it.
That's a relief to hear. It certainly looked like it was going into the crowd. Let's see which story gets told in association with that clip! Thanks for clarifying that -- and kudos to the pilot for handling the situation that way. Andy.
On a lighter note... Drone Crash is a good name for a band. Like the title says "Drone Crash" in concert
An update here: http://www.suasnews.com/2013/04/222...factor-after-airborne-camera-falls-in-thames/ A scuba diver has told how he recovered vital footage of the new series of The X Factor after answering an SOS call from producers to retrieve a video camera from the Thames. John Forbath was called in after a remote-controlled helicam malfunctioned as it filmed hopefuls queuing to audition for the hit ITV talent show at the ExCeL centre in Docklands. The helicam was deliberately crashed into the water to avoid injuring those in the queue. Mr Forbath, 48, was offered double his £50 hourly rate to rush to the crash site, where the water was 26 feet deep and visibility was just four inches. “We’re more used to retrieving things like wedding rings that people have dropped, so this was a surprise,” said the Londoner, who owns the Big Squid scuba diving company in Clapham and is regularly called out to retrieve submerged items. “The camera was attached to a remote-controlled helicopter — the helicopter floated to the top and they managed to fish that out. But the camera had sunk and they had even bought a catfish net to try and get it out.” The £20,000 camera system had been shooting footage on a memory card for the forthcoming series of The X Factor, which will be screened this autumn. The helicopter’s operator crashed it into the water on Saturday morning, but X Factor producers did not call Mr Forbath until 2.30pm, after their own rescue efforts failed. “I told them I couldn’t make it until the next day, so they said, ‘What are your rates? We’ll double them’,” he said. “I got there straight away and we did two dives. The first time I went down, I couldn’t see anything at all, so for the second we dropped a line down with a weight on the end so I had a reference to use when I was at the bottom. “I got it straight away on the second dive — I think luck played a big part. They were very happy when it came back up.” A spokesman for the X Factor said: “Thankfully, we were able to save all of the footage from the camera. After the helicam broke, the cameraman steered it over the Thames to avoid it crashing into the crowds waiting to audition. “No one was hurt and we managed to get a diver to fish the camera out of the river.”
These guys (Extreme Facilities) shoot aerials for BBC Top Gear using DJI equipment/Zenmuse with GH2, I wonder if it were them.
Wow, good move by the pilot. Would have been interesting to read the risk assessment for the shoot. I think extreme facilities use the s800 with Zenmuse, but that's an octocopter.
I passed this along to my contact at Transport Canada. Things are pretty tightly regulated around here, but we're technically allowed to fly. Makes everything much easier when it's all legit, however, we would never have gotten the go ahead to do this shoot.
Andrew hard to tell from the video but if the copter was flying behind the crowd, say 50 feet or so, I wouldn't see a problem. Are there specific guidelines in Canada that you could share? I would expect to see don't fly OVER crowds, persons, etc but is there a horizontal distance that is ok?
Hey Gary, yeah according to our flight permit, we can't fly within 30 metres of a crowd. We can fly over people if they've signed off, and are part of the shoot, but it's definitely a no no as far as crowds are concerned. Other rules: We can't fly within 30 metres of an occupied building, or an active roadway (that's 100 feet). Quite restrictive. However, most production companies we work with work on closed sets, where it's essentially a free for all. But some of the flights I see out of the U.S. where people are flying over their neighbourhood and such....yeah that's a $25K fine for us.
That's correct Gary. It's also 150 metres distant from a crowd of more than 1000 people - and that was a pretty big crowd!
In the uk to operate commercially (and legally) you need to hold a 'permission for aerial work' certificate issued by the CAA (Civil aviation authority). This can only be obtained by completing a ground school, submitting an approved operations manual & completing a flight test run by EuroUsc. http://www.eurousc.com/ Operators then work within the guidelines of Articles 166 & 167 of the Air Navigation Order. Rough guide to this here http://www.heliguy.com/operations_guide.pdf