Hi all...so for the past week, I have noticed a green light blinking in the woods behind my house. I saw it and just ignored it until last night. I was on my deck enjoying a cigar and cold beer and again saw the light blinking out there. So, I gathered up my beer and my dog and we went to investigate. Turns out the green light was the light emitting from the phantom intelligent flight battery. I thought it was weird that the battery was out there but no drone, but it was pitch black and I honestly didn't think twice about looking for the drone. I thought those things had like back up batteries or something. Anyways, I thought about it again this morning and thought well surely the drone must be out there somewhere and sure enough, it was there. A phantom 3 professional. 4K camera and gimbal(?) completely snapped off. The camera was laying about 10 yards away from the drone. The drone itself doesn't seem to be in too bad of shape. Some scuff marks.
I read about it's GPS and locating software so I took the drone outside and popped the battery in so that it's computer would fire up and hopefully tag the owner as to its location. I've heard about this "home" function so I took it outside so that it would try to fly back to a GPS tag inside my house. It's been a week since I noticed the green light, so clearly someone has no idea where it is. I tried to extract it's camera information but can't seem to find anything to help me there. My wife posted it's disappearance on facebook and we are asking all that claim it provide serial number, complete description and anything else that would prove it's theirs.
Anyways, what are the rules here. I'm not too happy finding a crashed drone on my property with a camera. We don't live near anything neat to look at. Just a residential neighborhood. But I don't think it's anything bad intentioned, someone could just be the victim of a flyaway.
I know nothing of these things, other than it looked cool as hell when I fired it up. I want to do anything I can to help the owner find it. If it were a $100 drone I'd call finders keepers, but it's $1,200 it looks like and I can't do that with a clear conscience.
Obviously, if I can find anyone with a week or 2 I'll call it abandoned and I'll have a new hobby. It'll take about $500/$600 in repair for the gimbal and camera. The camera lens itself is fine, it's just the bracket broke off and the ribbon is cut.
Anyways, any ideas? I feel I have exhausted my resources.