Today, I saw on AirMap other people were flying over Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, CA.  The staduim is being torndown and I showed up to a parking lot near the stadium and there were about 5 other drones flying from there.  Kind of cool to fly with other people, we each pick an altitude within the 50ft top of the stadium and went about our flights.

Two of the pilot were Part 107.  One worked for was an Agent with Customs and Border Patrol and had certiciation for work.  The other guy, was an extremely conservative operator, I'll call him "Mr. Part 107", who had both a Mini 2 and Autel Evo II.  He had about 6 hours of experience and a little over 3 miles of total flight between the two drone.  The two pilots were part of drone group and flow together before.  "Mr. Part 107" finished going through his paper checklist after about 20 minutes and finally got his Mini 2 in the air.

We were talking about places we had flow recently.  I told them I likee the Border Wall in Otay Mesa, CA and to just say hello to one CBP Agent that are sitting in their trucks on the road along the wall before flying.  Also, I mentioned Sea World was a cool place as it has a 100ft airspace and the park is closed so you are so not flying over poeple.  You can see the orcas in their three pools nicely.  

The "Mr. Part 107" was emphatic that it was an FAA violation to fly over Sea World but could not cite a specific violation.  Prior to flying over Sea World, I stopped by the security office and security told me it was not permitted to fly from the property but there was a park across the street where drone pilots can takeoff from and to enjoy my flight.  "Mr. Part 107" went as far to say that if he saw me flying over Sea World he was required to report me to the FAA.  Despite a Federal Law Enforcement Office participating in the discussion and verifing it was perfectly legal "Mr. Part 107" was stood on his laurels reguarding his fiduciary duties to FAA.  

Fastforward 20 minutes, we have all landed and are hanging out except "Mr. Part 107" who is flying about 300ft away over a dirt area a 1000ft from the stadium.  This is as far as he was comfortable with going.  All of the sudden his Mini 2 falls from the sky and plummets 40ft crashing into pile of broken up concrete.  Everyone is dumbfounded.  At first he says it fell and that the drone was defective.  

Fortunately, he had his DJI account synced with AirData.com and was able to view the logs as he was using DJI Fly app v1.2.1.  He played the video while the log of the flight was syncing and there was a bird that flew across the video a long ways away.  The log showed that he pulled an Emergency Stop and cut power to the Mini 2.  "Mr. Part 107" said he saw the bird he did an Emergency Stop after we saw the log to yield to the bird.  It was pointed out to him that by default it is set to emergency only.  He claimed that for safety purposes it was supposed to be set to Anytime.

The Mini 2 was a wreck after hitting the concrete boulders.  The gimble was broken, two arms were completely broken and hanging and one was not able to be extened also the front of the body had a huge gash along the top.

Interesting story John.  I really don't feel sorry for Mr. Part 107.  Thanks for sharing.

It is sad when anyone loses their drone.  His was an overabundance of caution but after all his antics and rhetoric it was hard to be empathetic.  

The reason I though I would share the story was that new pilots may try to be over diligent with safety and not realize that some of the features like Emergency Stop - Anytime are not a good thing to enable.