Is This the Moon Landing of the Zoomer Generation? 

The ongoing volcanic activity of Cumbre Vieja, on the Spanish Isle of La Palma, has been a subject of internet interest since it began.

A thankfully bloodless, fun-to-watch play, since early evacuations successfully removed residents from danger. Not all the island’s residents have escaped, however, as viewers remotely touring the situation noticed four scrawny, haggard dogs trapped behind a house.

Stuck behind the exclusion zone, with local airspace closed near the volcano, the dogs seemed doomed to starvation or death by lava flow. Local UAV companies Tecnofly and TicomSolutions stepped up to the plate and began airlifting food and water to the beleaguered animals, securing their survival for a time. Upon contact with a Spanish animal welfare group, Jaime Pereira, CEO of Aerocámaras, volunteered his company’s services. In preparing for the mission, his team has completed a series of short lift tests, gauging their drone’s capabilities to retrieve one dog at a time, fly it free of the area, and repeat the effort thrice more. While his company has the most capable drones closest to the scene, they are a far cry from the kind of equipment needed for the task, necessitating careful planning, meticulous piloting, and a good bit of luck to complete the rescue.

In an interview with Telecino, Pereira enumerated some of the obstacles to a successful operation. Battery considerations mean that operators can only loiter to retrieve the dogs for less than 4 minutes in order to retain a safe margin of power, lest they run out of charge over the lava flows on the return flight (not an optimal outcome). Obtaining the dogs, alone and afraid, on the ground is an issue all itself. With no handlers or humans around, Aerocámaras must rig a net system to catch the animals from above, and ensure it holds them securely throughout the quarter-mile flight over the rising heat to land them safely again. Picking up one dog at a time, securing it within the rigging, and making the flight will be difficult to do in quadruplicate, but Pereira is confident in his company’s skills. 

When the first attempt at rescue was carried out, the dogs had moved somewhere out of sight. Assuming they have hidden themselves away from the increasing heat and smoke, the rescue was scrubbed in order to wait for nightfall, when thermal imaging will be able to better distinguish the dogs from residual heat. In their latest flight, operators were able to drop more water for the dogs, keeping them hydrated until the next rescue attempt. 

FMI: https://twitter.com/aerocamaras