Fourth of July Drone Attack
An aerial drone landed in the middle of the West Martello in the middle of the Garden Club’s Fourth of July fireworks party there. I landed right on member Bob Hans, who got cuts on his arm and leg trying to disengage it from him and stop it from hurting anyone else.
The drone had been visible for the previous hour. At first, member Cynthia Edwards thought it was a helicopter. “But it made such extreme maneuvers, no helicopter could stop, hover, and take off in a different direction so quickly.,” she remembered. The green and purple lights were also no match for regular aircraft.
“I don’t like it,” said Kim Gordon. The members watching generally agreed that there was something spooky about a drone hovering above us. Hazel Hans wondered how high it was, when we saw it above the fireworks, once they finally started at 9:54 pm, even later than last year’s tardy performance.
Everyone was enjoying the spectacle until around 10:05 when an angry buzzing super-mosquito landed on Bob. No, not a mosquito, but a small plastic intensely whirring drone aircraft, about two feet across. Members got a chair leg wedged in it to disable it.
Then the owner appeared on the beach below Martello. He claimed it, and wanted it back. A member went to meet him at the front of the locked gates for the private party for volunteers. He gave his driver’s license, saying where he worked and that he had insurance.
Members took pictures of the drone, Bob’s injuries, and the drone owner’s driver’s license. The members in good faith took the driver’s license back to the drone owner and showed him his drone. But while waiting for the police, who never responded to the call for a police report, he managed to grab most of his drone through the gate while the members were waiting in vain for police who never came.
During the 45 minutes members waited, two police cars were dealing with a homeless person at the White Street pier. Another two police cars were handling a guy barfing in his car right in front of the gate where the members were waiting, and who refused to have anything to do with us.
Two stories: private sector drones, owned by an individual who wanted to take pictures of the fireworks he could sell, and a police department who doesn’t think a man bleeding from an out-of-control drone is as important as a homeless man or a drunk. Chief Lee, what’s your call? After 45 minutes, everyone finally cave up on our Key West Police department and left.
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really, key west, your suppose to be known as laidback. complaining about something like this is unacceptable. someone paid a lot of money to get that drone in the air for our entertainment and here you are complaining about it landing in your party. you should be ashamed of yourselves. i myself cant wait to see the pictures from this event!!!!!
is this satire, or just stupid?
Lovehina , invasion if privacy-private party. You’re not untitled to know what goes in behind the “locked” gates. Did you not catch “bleeding injuries”??? Personal safety IS an issue.
Just because the owner had a drivers license, doesn’t mean he can safely fly – perhaps some laws , insurance liability. and yes, licensing issues must be developed for people choosing to become these junior techno spies. Too bad a baseball bat was not handy to take care of the “mosquito”.
On a day celebrating our freedoms and rights, an event as this – obviously challenging certain aspects of ours – is most definitely not a shame. Luckily for those at that party, it wasn’t tragic. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye….
Was it flying in a restricted air space???.
Did he have a permit.
And yes I would go to the police station and file a report.
They are responsible for damages and injuries.
Can you say accountability! !!!!!!!!!
I would like to clarify the one sided story of the “attacking drone”. I was one of many eyewitnesses to see the flying drone and the crash landing into the private party. I was sitting on a brick wall with some young people waiting for the fireworks when we saw two drones flying around. First of all, the drones were not at all suspicious or dangerous. Several people on the beach were looking into the sky in awe of the drones before the fireworks display began. About 10 minutes into the fireworkshow, one of the drones came near the brick wall i was sitting on and the private party. It was obvious that the drone was malfunctioning by the wobbling and slowed motion of the machine. Soon after, the drone fell unfortunately into the empty lawn chair within the fenced private party. No one in that party appeared younger than 50. I witnessed the owner of the drone call to the private partiers to ask for his machine back as the elderly yelled at him demanding if he had legal responsibility of his drone. From that point, myself and 7 others saw these ” innoccently injuryed” rip apart expensive machinery after they had posed in pictures with it. The drone had never landed on anyone. It was stuck in a cheap white chair until the old party goers decided to tear it out and rip it apart. througout massacre of the drone I, among the seven others, who witnessesed the tantrum were yelling at the elderly to stop but were responded with nothing more than a scoff.
Visitor on vacation from Texas
Where are the pics? I find this hard to believe.
It is against FAA regulations to fly a drone within 5 miles of any airport http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=76240 & http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2014/06/24/332771.htm . It is also against FAA regulations to fly a drone for any commercial use.
FAA has no authority under 700ft. For now.