My $500 drone survey missed a 4 foot drainage pipe on a job site

I was running a site prep in Denver last month and figured I'd save time with a drone mapping tool instead of walking the whole lot. The software flagged everything fine above ground, but a crew member tripped into a buried pipe that wasn't on the model. Learned the hard way that aerial data can't catch underground stuff unless you feed it manual inputs or ground radar. Has anyone else had a survey tool miss something obvious like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

price.alice19d ago

Ugh YES my landscaper buddy found a gas line the same way last month.

jakewhite19d ago

Yeah exactly, nobody talks about how a simple sprinkler install can turn into a huge disaster real quick.