A Beaufort Co. pilot took a photo of the Goodyear blimp. Then his phone fell 1,500 feet

Chris Carmel is accustomed to soaring hundreds of feet above the Lowcountry while documenting the area’s natural resources.

The Brays Island resident saw something new last week not long after taking off from Ridgeland-Claude Dean Airport. The iconic Goodyear blimp was flying south between Beaufort and Bluffton on a clear Wednesday morning.

With one side of his Aviat Husky A1-B open and flying at 1,500 feet, Carmel began snapping photos with his iPhone XR. When he tried to record video of the blimp, the phone slipped from his hand and flew from the plane.

“I figured that was the end of it,” Carmel said.

Thanks to some help from strangers, Carmel’s tale didn’t end there.

The Goodyear blimp is a common sight over major sporting events, and its schedule also includes events for nonprofit organizations and special corporate events. The company maintains three of the blimps at bases in Ohio, California and Florida.

When Carmel spotted the blimp on Wednesday, the aircraft was apparently on its way to an event with customers near Jacksonville, Florida, according to the blimp’s official Twitter account.

Carmel earned his pilot’s license 40 years ago after wanting to fly planes in the military. He opted for a career in finance instead, and four years ago moved from outside New York City to Brays Island, a private community in the northern Beaufort County community of Sheldon.

He’s had his two-seater bush plane since 2006 and flies trips for SouthWings, a nonprofit conservation organization. From the air, Carmel or a passenger document polluted sites, bodies of water and storm damage for organizations such as Savannah Riverkeeper.

A small camera is usually attached to a lanyard on Carmel’s wrist when he flies. On Wednesday he didn’t have the camera and said he anticipated being in the air only about an hour or so.

After the phone flew from the cockpit, Carmel returned to the hangar. He logged in to his Apple iCloud account, activated Find my iPhone and took a screen shot of the green dot on a satellite image showing his device somewhere off S.C. Highway 462 in Jasper County.

The property where the map showed his phone was gated, so he drove to the other side near Snake Road looking for another entrance. That one was also blocked by a gate.

By chance, the property owner was at the gate with another man when Carmel returned to the first entrance. After initial skepticism, the men agreed to drive with Carmel to look for the phone.

When they thought they were close, one of them called Carmel’s phone. The three beeps of his Signal ringtone chirped from about 10 feet away.

The smartphone was resting on leaves and pine straw and wasn’t damaged, Carmel said. A clear case protected the phone, but it wasn’t a particularly sturdy model.

He wrote Apple to let them know its product survived such a rigorous test but hadn’t heard from the company as of Monday morning.

Carmel believes the tree canopy must have softened the fall. The video Carmel attempted to record didn’t work.

It’s probably for the best, Carmel said. Had the phone been recording, the battery might have died before he reached it.

And he still has the photo of the blimp.

“It’s just a majestic sight to see that,” Carmel said. “Particularly on a nice day.”