2 1/2 years ago, I went to Lake Arrowhead to shoot establishing shots with my DJI Phantom Pro 4 drone. I bought this drone specifically because it has crash collision detection.
Little did I know that would not be the case. I was flying my drone and out of no where, the controls would not respond to me and it’s like it had a mind of its own.
I had a fly-away drone and I’m in Lake Arrowhead and all I could do was hope and pray that it landed safely without injuring anyone.
It was one of the scariest experiences of my life flying a drone. You feel so helpless and have no idea what to do, and all you can do is wait till it lands.
My drone end up landing somewhere in the middle of the woods. It was a hike to get there. My friend Lyn went out there tracking it on the GPS left on my remote.
At the time we didn’t know that was a GPS, we were just following the dot on the screen and hoping it would lead to my drone. When I got it back, my drone was completely destroyed. The battery broke off and the camera gimbal was barely hanging on.
I was devastated. I went home and sent my drone in for repair at DJI, knowing that it could be about a month before I would see her again. Well, I got really lucky. I got a brand new drone within a week of sending it in.
They couldn’t really figure out what caused the fly-away so instead of trying to fix it they just gave me a new one at no cost. I can’t tell you how happy I was to have my drone back and let alone have a completely brand new one.
Shot by Aimee 