Drone Pilot’s Motor Trick Warns Surfer of Circling Shark

A drone pilot in Northern California spotted a shark circling a surfer on June 10, then used the aircraft itself to push the man out of the water before anything happened. Nick Bertocchini was flying over Seascape Beach in Aptos when the shark moved in behind a surfer named Rex and began to circle. Instead of just filming, he dropped the drone low and revved its motors until Rex got the message and paddled in.

Bertocchini turned the drone into a warning siren

Rather than record the encounter and post it afterward, Bertocchini used his aircraft as an active alarm, flying it down toward the water and revving the motors loud enough that the surfer looked up and paddled to shore before the shark made any contact. That choice is the whole story.

“This one stood out because it appeared more investigative than the average encounter I typically see,” Bertocchini said. “I am glad the shark and surfer left without any further contact.”

Most viral shark footage is passive. A pilot films from a safe altitude, the clip goes online, and the surfer often never knew a thing until later. Bertocchini did the opposite. He turned a camera drone into a communication device using nothing but propeller noise and altitude.

Dropping a drone low over moving water is not a casual move either. Saltwater kills electronics, a rogue wave can swallow an aircraft in a second, and prop wash near the surface gets unpredictable. Most pilots hold their altitude and protect the hardware. Bertocchini spent his safety margin on a stranger.

There’s an instinct in people that kicks in when we can help someone. I think it’s part of the decency that still survives in some of us. I’ve never been in that spot, but I have zero doubt. If I’d been the one flying that drone, I wouldn’t have just buzzed the motors. I’d have been screaming at that surfer to get out of the water.

Drones have become a frontline shark-spotting tool

An overhead camera sees what a person at water level cannot, which is why lifeguards and surf rescue groups have folded drones into their patrols, turning an off-the-shelf aircraft into a cheap early-warning system along crowded coastlines. Bertocchini’s clip is the freelance version of the same idea.

The physics are what make this work at all. From a couple hundred feet up, a drone camera cuts through the surface glare that blinds anyone at water level, and a shark reads as a dark shape sliding over a pale sandy bottom. A surfer sitting on his board has none of that view. The pilot overhead sees the whole chessboard, which is exactly why this tool keeps showing up on patrol.

Surf Life Saving crews in Australia have flown shark-spotting drone patrols for years, and several California beaches have tested aerial spotting during high-traffic months. The pitch is simple. A single pilot covering a stretch of water gives swimmers minutes of warning that no tower-based lifeguard can match.

What makes the Aptos clip different is that nobody assigned Bertocchini the job. He was a private flier who happened to be overhead and chose to act. That is the gap between an official program and a citizen with a drone, and it is the part regulators have not figured out.

Aptos sees more sharks than it used to

Rex, who said he grew up surfing this stretch of coast, told NBC Los Angeles reporters he has watched shark sightings climb near Seascape Beach over recent years. His read matches what many Monterey Bay surfers have been saying about the area.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife notes that shark sightings happen regularly along the state’s coast while bites remain extremely rare. Both things are true at once. More eyes in the sky mean more documented encounters, which is not the same as more danger in the water.

That distinction matters for how these clips get read. A drone makes the ocean legible in a way it never was before, and footage of a shark calmly circling a surfer can look terrifying even when it ends, as this one did, with both parties going their separate ways.

DroneXL’s Take

Let’s be straight. This is just a guy with a drone who decided that filming a potential shark attack was less important than preventing one. That instinct is worth more than the footage.

I’ve watched the shark-drone genre grow into pure content bait. Spot a fin, get the clip, farm the views. Bertocchini had every incentive to stay quiet and let the drama build for his camera. He chose to spook the shark and warn the surfer instead, and he gave up the more dramatic video to do it.

That’s the part of consumer drones people forget. The same aircraft that fuels viral fear clips is also the cheapest search-and-rescue tool a coastline has ever had. Which one it becomes depends entirely on the person holding the controller.

The news has trained people to see drones as tools for harm. Those of us who fly them every day know better. They’re one of the most useful and versatile inventions ever built. In this case, useful as shark-lunch prevention.

The open question is liability. If a private pilot misjudges and a drone strike or a panicked swimmer makes things worse, no rulebook covers it yet. Flying low over a crowded beach already brushes up against FAA rules on operating over people, and “I was saving someone” is not a category the regulations recognize. Watch whether any California beach agency moves to formalize civilian shark-spotting, or to ban it, after clips like this keep circulating.

Photo credit: Nick Bertocchini