During the auditions for the next season of The X Factor in London a UAV filming the event malfunctioned and crashed into the river Thames and the footage had to be subsequently retrived by a scuba diver John Forbath.
The UAV in question was being remote controlled to film the auditions when the device suddenly malfunctioned and the pilot had to deliberately crash it into the river to avoid injuring the civillians waiting in the queue. The X Factor crew then made efforts to retrieve the footage on their own but managed to only rescue the UAV which was floating on surface, while the camera with the footage sunk to the bottom.
“The camera was attached to a remote-controlled helicopter — the helicopter floated to the top and they managed to fish that out. But the camera had sunk and they had even bought a catfish net to try and get it out.”
Diver John Forbath
It was then 2.30 pm when Mr. Forbes was called to retrive the footage and was offered double his hourly wage to come straight away, and he did. The pricing was understandable, as the footage is irreplaceable and the camera system costed about £20,000! The conditions were also quite harsh because the visibility was less than 4 inches ahead and the bottom was 26 feet deep.
“I told them I couldn’t make it until the next day, so they said, ‘What are your rates? We’ll double them.”
Mr.Forbath is the owner of a scuba diving company called Big Squid located in the city Clapham. His company offers scuba diving courses, equipment and they also help people retrieve items like they did in this case. After arriving Mr.Forbath performed two subsequent dives, managing to rescue the sunken camera system with the footage on the second dive after using a weighted line as a guide.
“I got it straight away on the second dive — I think luck played a big part. They were very happy when it came back up.”
Well, it seems that UAVs don’t just work for us all the time, but they also need our help sometimes too.
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