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Watch a drone crash into Seattle's Space Needle

The Pacific Northwest landmark wasn't harmed, but staff report this is the third drone recovered on the property.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
2 min read

When you live in Seattle, as I do, you get used to the landmark 605-foot (184-meter) Space Needle becoming a mildly bizarre, Jetsons-y part of your daily life.

A Christmas tree made of lights gets plopped on top of it in December, the Seahawks 12 flag flies from the Needle when the football team has a big game, and fireworks shoot off around it on New Year's Eve and July 4. My daughter even grew up with a series of children's books about a friendly monster named Wheedle who lives on the Needle (don't miss the one where he gets a kitten!).

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But you also get a little protective of the looming landmark, so seeing a drone smash into it is unnerving.

The Space Needle has released video taken by a drone, not affiliated with the landmark, that circled the monument in late December as workers were atop the building prepping for the New Year's Eve fireworks display.

First, the drone captures some neat footage of the Needle and surrounding city, but at about 2:17 into the video, it seems to change course and slams into the Needle's top, much to the surprise of the pyrotechnic workers. Talk about trying to thread the eye of a needle, and missing.

"It looks like the drone tractor beam we installed on the Space Needle is working," Space Needle CEO and president Ron Sevart said in a statement. "This is the third time we've recovered a drone on our property."

The Needle wasn't damaged, but the incident was reported to the FAA and the video turned over to the Seattle Police Department.

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