Found Drone in Yosemite

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My brother in law dropped by last night and asked me if I knew about drones and I told him I had one and knew plenty. He brought me outside and showed me what he had in a bag. I was surprise to see a phantom with a GoPro3 and a Fat Shark set up. I told him this guy had to be really upset from his loss. The quad was beat and it looked like it had spent some time under water. It was rusted and full of sand.
My brother in law said he found it in Yosemite while attending his son in laws wedding there.
We drank some beers, shook some sand out of it and cleaned it up a bit. I was able to blow the sand and grit away from the memory card slot enough to pull the card out. I popped it in my gopro4 hooked it to my 55" UHD and was surprised to see all the files were still viewable! Yes indeed this guy misses this thing especially after watching his vids. He crashed it on December 29th 2015. We watched his final flight which was about an 1/8 of a mile up a beautiful icy river. Instead of turning around and returning he started backing up and hit some trees. Boom... it recorder under water for about 5 minutes after the crash.

After watching his other files we determined he was from somewhere in South America visiting Yosemite around Christmas time.

I'll upload some pics in a bit.
 
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The bottom pic is the owner/pilot. If you're out there and see this get a hold of me and I'll do what I can to at least get your memory card to you. Lots of cool stuff on here.

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Thanks! I just hope if I ever lost mine it would be returned.

The quad, GoPro and fat shark stuff are completely destroyed and useless but like I said I'm sure this dude would love to have his video files back for sure.

I'll put the final flight on YouTube later and post it. It's a true epic heartbreak.
 
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Here's the final flight of this poor guys quad.
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That was his fine for breaking the law.
Yup, I called it instant karma.

I think this guy was visiting from South America and said eff it, I didn't drag this thing all the way up here for nothing. He really did get some awesome footage.
 
The abrupt stop and return was probably in response to the ranger vehicle he saw approaching....
 
Any other files on the SD card (GPS log) that might help track him? I'd be very upset under the same circumstances.
 
Any other files on the SD card (GPS log) that might help track him? I'd be very upset under the same circumstances.
Yes, he has plenty of flight vids and from the looks of it this dude lives somewhere in South America in a very nice villa sitting on some beautiful plantation.
 
I wonder if some of the pictures on the SD card are geo-tagged. That would help find him / where he lives.
If you have some pictures, I can look at those and help pin-point his GPS coordinates
 
I'll check it out and let you know, but I'm thinking the only way this guy will find out is if he happens to stumble on this thread in this forum or he comes across the vid I posted on YouTube.

Maybe someone he knows will recognize his face in the pic.
 

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