“Photographers suffer financial losses due to SpaceX Starship launch – GoPro asked for compensation”

On April 20 of this year, the first proper launch of the rocket took place SpaceX Starship. It rose up to a height of 39 km and although the test was not successful in all points, it is generally evaluated positively. However, some people also suffered significant financial losses from the start. Specifically, these are photographers who were allowed to bring remote-controlled cameras into the relatively close vicinity of the launch pad. One of them was Scott Schilke, for whom and his action cameras it was already the 150th photo shoot. He placed 9 different cameras and cameras here, but only three survived.

The problem was that the Starship had so much strength and the concrete underneath was already worn down enough that the combination of these two factors caused it to tear apart. At the start, pieces of concrete started flying all around and literally shelling the cameras standing around. In this way, Schilke lost 4 GoPro cameras and two professional Canon cameras with expensive lenses, so the damage amounted to about 40 thousand USD. Now he is asking GoPro to help him with compensation for the destroyed GoPro 7 and 8 cameras (if a person pays a subscription, he is entitled to a replacement in case of damage). However, shots of destroyed cameras from other photographers also appeared on the Internet.