Shoutout to drone pilot Márcio Costa for providing a detailed breakdown of a viral video of a jet ski rescue gone wrong captured over the massive waves of Nazaré, Portugal.
During the Gigantes de Nazaré surfing event at Praia do Norte, Costa was flying his First-Person View (FPV) drone as surfer Willyam “Will” Santana took off on a wave. The wave broke almost directly over him and swallowing him into violent mass of white water.
Daniel “Foamball” Rangel was driving the rescue jet ski and swooped in for a save as soon as will resurfaced. Will grabbed the rear of the ski, while Daniel stayed in the impact zone until the last possible moment. Daniel tried to accelerate to safety before the next wall of water arrived but did not make it in time and jumped off the watercraft before the wave impacted.
Many people questioned the choice and Costa provided a play by play of the sequence that explains the split second decision to abandoned the jet ski.
As the white water in front of them begins to form again, the wave lifts the jet ski, it loses speed, and in a fraction of a second Daniel realizes there is no longer enough time or distance to escape.
“The lip is about to land directly on their path. At that moment, the jet ski is no longer the way out. It becomes a danger. Staying with the machine could mean taking the full impact beside it, being struck by it, trapped around it or violently thrown with it under thousands of tons of water. Daniel has only a fraction of a second to react. *He abandons the jet ski and dives into the wave.”
Both men disappeared completely after the impact as the spectators on the cliffside above collectively held their breath. Will was eventually rescued, and Daniel also makes it out safely. The jet ski ended up impacting the cliff and suffered severe damage.
Thankfully this pair made it out of this harrowing situation and we have crystal clear dynamic footage of the action. There has been untold hours of drone footage of surfing but this may be the most dramatic ever published. Costa acknowledges a variety of circumstances that led to this incredible video and we are grateful not only for him publishing it but for explaining the potential lifesaving decision making by the surfer and the rescuer:
“Through an almost impossible combination of position, battery, timing and circumstance, the FPV drone was exactly where it needed to be to capture the sequence from beginning to end. That is what makes these images especially rare. Moments like this are normally filmed from a distance, with long lenses, cameras on the cliff or conventional drones. FPV placed the viewer inside the action, in one continuous perspective”
