The Tulsa police department posted this warning video on Facebook in an effort to deter hobbyist drone pilots from hindering and endangering first aid and rescue operations in the flooded areas around Tulsa, Oklahoma. Various media also reported on drones getting in the way of rescue efforts in the flooded regions. The message is clear: fly within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules and please stay out of the way of rescue operations. And, always give way to manned aircraft.
We have reported on many stories in which drones were used to find missing people, however, this one is a first. In Florida, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office deployed Six (!) drones to help find a missing 77-year-old man. The man, who reportedly suffers from health and mental challenges, was lost for two hours when the Sheriff’s Office was contacted. The CCSO deployed their Drone Operations Unit, who divided the search area in a grid and deployed six drones in search of the missing man. The CCSO obviously knew what they were doing and the man was found and brought back to safety.
What stands out in this story is not just the fact that drones were used on the search, but that the CCSO has a dedicated Drone Operations Unit that methodically executed the search and use multiple drones to find the missing person faster. I hope this story gets picked up by many police and fire departments around the country (world) as it is a great example of how drones can be successfully used. You can read the report from the CCSO below.
According to DJI, this is (at least) the 228th person around the world who has been rescued with the help of a drone. Drones for good.
Xenia police of Greene County, Ohio released a drone video of the moment that a 90-year-old woman, who suffers from dementia was rescued. Her daughter, Beverly Brown, credits the drone for helping find her mother and bringing her home safely. The search for the woman took about one hour, but would have taken much longer without the help of the unmanned aircraft. The video shows a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual as the drone that likely was used during the search. The woman was found during daylight conditions. There is no mention if the use of the thermal camera aided in the search. The missing woman was brought back home safely.
Drones to the rescue! Yesterday, a drone assisted in the rescue of seven swimmers in Laulau Bay, Micronesia. The CNMI Department of Public Safety-Boating Safety Division received a 911 call about the distressed swimmers at 12:53 p.m. Shortly after receiving the call the DPS impact rescue boat was launched to bring the swimmers safely back to shore. The drone assisted in the rescue of the seven tourist swimmers in Laulau Bay by providing the exact coordinates of their location to the crew aboard the rescue boat.
A drone and a search dog were used to help find a missing man in Garrard County, Kentucky. Garrard County Emergency Management credits the skills and use of drone technology of the first responders as it made it possible to quickly find the missing person last Monday. Another example of drones involved in search and rescue.
The police of the City of Fremont in California used a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual equipped with a FLIR camera to find a missing teenager. The Fremont police dispatch received a call last Tuesday, February 5 at around 8:30 PM from the California Highway Patrol, requesting an outside assist to help find a student from the California School for the Deaf.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is holding a special Drone Safety Webinar for public safety officials on Wednesday, March 6th, 2019 at 2 pm EST. The webinar is titled: “Drone Safety: It’s the law.” You can find out more about this event below.
More stories of drones doing good this week! On Monday afternoon, a 15-year-old girl who was stranded on the ice of Lake Michigan was rescued successfully after being located with the help of a drone. Members of the Park Township Fire Department deployed a drone (a DJI Mavic 2 it seems based on the photos) to locate the girl. She was found at the bottom of a ledge about 1,000 feet offshore west of the observation deck on the shore of the Idlewood Beach neighborhood.
We have reported on many stories in which people’s lives have been saved with the help of drones. This time it is a border collie that has suffered a broken leg after being hit by a vehicle that has been rescued by a drone. The dog had gone into hiding days after the accident but was found by Jamie Jewell, a volunteer for Drone SAR For Lost Dogs UK.
Police and fire departments from Brownsville had joined forces Monday night to locate and rescue an 88-year-old man who was reported missing. According to Brownsville Police Department Spokeswoman Melissa Gonzalez said Luis Reyna Zuniga’s family had informed the police that the elderly man went missing around 5:30 pm. In the end, it was with the help of a thermal drone that the man was found. The drone possibly saved Zuniga’s life, according to police. Over the last few years, many people’s lives have been saved with the help of drones.
Drones have helped to save people’s lives in many cases. Earlier this year DJI reported that in 2017, 65 people had been rescued with the help of drones and that 124 people around the world were saved with drone assistence. These numbers are undoubtedly even higher now. Search and rescue drones are often outfitted with infra-red or thermal cameras to help find missing people. However, that is not always the case. Often times, the drones use their regular cameras to take photos or a large area in which people have gotten lost. The challenge then becomes, how do you sift through thousands and thousands of aerial photos looking for that one missing individual? This is where Loc8’s software comes into play. Loc8 software can go through thousands of images, much faster than is humanly possible, to locate the few pixels that might represent a missing person. This could be very exciting software indeed and may go a long to way to help find missing persons faster.
Finding lost hikers in a forest can be very difficult as the thick canopy prevents helicopters and manned aircraft from getting a glimpse of what is down below. Using drones may be difficult as well as flying in between the trees, GPS signals may be very difficult to pick up. This is where autonomous fleets of drones outfitted with LIDAR systems may come to the rescue of lost hikers, as presented by MIT researchers at the International Symposium on Experimental Robotics conference.
In Australia, scientists of the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries are testing drones to learn more about shark behavior and using this technology as a beach safety device. Australia seems to be much further ahead than the US when it comes to using drones to keep beaches safe. The video below shows you some amazing footage of sharks, dolphins, and whales, that was collected during these tests.
A woman who had been missing since last Friday was found in the jungle in Kampung Nyior Manis, Malaysia with the help of a drone. According to the officer-in-charge of Pekan Fire and Rescue Station Wan Samsul Effendi Wan Mahmud, the 31-year-old woman was found at 4.20pm last Saturday. A member of the public had used his drone to find her in the jungle.
In Belmar, New Jersey, lifeguards are conducting tests using drones to assist them in helping swimmers back to land. According to CBS 3 Philly, the town of Belmar is looking to Rutgers University for help in a partnership to figure out how these rescues will work.
Around the world more and more lifeguards are turning to drones to get to people in need faster. So too in this latest rescue in Puerto de Sagunto, Spain where the new Auxdrone Lifeguard drone, developed by the company General Drones, was put to use to help three swimmers who got in trouble in the surf in two separate events. the rescues took place last Wednesday.
Last Monday we reported on how mountaineer Rick Allen was successfully rescued, after being presumed dead, from Broad Peak (26,400 ft) in Pakistan. with help of a DJI Mavic Pro drone. Needless to say that everybody involved, is happy to report that Rick made it back to safety with only minor injuries. This is the latest, but far from the only, rescue mission in which a drone played a crucial role in saving someone’s life. What sets this story apart though, are the extreme conditions (altitude and temperature) in which the DJI Mavic Pro was able to fly. From K2’s basecamp, Bartek Bargiel who piloted the drone was able to answer some questions in a short interview with DroneDJ.
DJI introduces as of today, their global authorization team that can unlock geofencing restrictions around the world, around the clock within 30 minutes. Geofencing restrictions are hardcoded into DJI’s products to prevent, as the FAA likes to call them, clueless, careless and criminal drone pilots from flying their unmanned aircraft into sensitive areas, such as the airspace around airports (SFO for instance), prisons, and other military or federal facilities. However, in times of emergencies, first responders and law enforcement officials may want to fly their drones into such areas, which is why DJI has now introduced a special team that can authorize access for specific drones to fly into areas that are typically off-limits. This feature is only available for professional drone operators and not for casual drone pilots.
Rick Allen, one of the world’s best known and most accomplished mountaineers was believed to have perished after an accident on Broad Peak, the world’s 12th highest mountain. However, a DJI Mavic Pro drone that was launched from K2’s base camp found him alive and moving. Allen has successfully been rescued and is now safe at K2’s base camp.
On Tuesday, July 10, the Jasper County (Indiana) Sheriff’s Office released information about a joint investigation together with the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office. Together the departments had recently been able to locate missing father and child with a drone within 15 minutes after the duo had been missing for half a day.
Drone company DroneUp from Chesapeake, VA is assisting in the search for a Williamsburg couple that went missing earlier this month in California. William and Susan Schmeirer were on a cross-country road trip when they disappeared in the Mojave Desert in California. On June 13th, their car was found abandoned at the Amboy Crater Trailhead parking lot.
Yesterday, the Fire Department of Wayne Township in Indianapolis, Indiana flew their DJI Matrice 210 with dual camera setup for the first time ever in heavy rain. On Twitter, they reported that: “She performed like a champ!”. Since March of this year, DJI Enterprise has increased their efforts to break into the commercial drone market and specifically the first responders. As we know, drones can help to save lives and it is good to see more first responders starting to use them.
A major search and rescue operation in the UK, involving a helicopter, has successfully been closed after a police drone spotted the missing 75-year-old men in a Norfolk reed bed, 24 hours after he was last seen.
Last Sunday, a drone rescue mission from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Kīlauea volcano’s lower East Rift Zone, helped guide a resident who was trapped at his residence to a team of rescue workers, who were on their way to evacuate the civilian. The individual was instructed to follow the drone back to safety. The unmanned aerial system (UAS) team could keep track of the person visually as he was instructed to use his cell phone’s flashlight. Meanwhile, the team was also assisting the rescue workers in their effort to reach and evacuate the resident.
