Aerial Views of Abandoned Places

Top AirVuz contributor Smakozawr brings us this chilling drone video of the site of one of the great industrial disasters in history: the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine.  One of the plant's reactors exploded during the course of a test procedure on April 26, 1985, spewing radiactive steam and debris over a wide swathe of Eastern Europe and beyond.  The catastrophe forced the permanent abandonment of the nearby town of Pripyat, and played a critical role in the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.   

Award-winning contributor and pilot LA.Drones created this amazing drone video of a train cemetery in southwestern Bolivia.  The city of Uyuni is the largest city in the region, which sits on the great Antiplano plateay and is also home to the Uyuni Salt Flats.  When the area's critical mining industry collapsed in the 1940's, the local railroads collapsed too.  Uyuni being the main rail junction, the trains ended up being abandoned just outside of the city, resulting in what you'll see in the video.

The Laguna de Aljojuca is a landmark crater lake in the Aljojuca Municaplity in Puebla, Mexico, southeast of Mexico City.  Located at the base of this of crater stands the long-abandoned shell of Cancantla, a once-inviting hacienda, which was beautifully filmed in cinematic style by award-winning contributor and drone pilot PostandFly.  With sweeping aerials views of the imposing crater-lake and the surrounding plains, this drone video evokes the abandonment seen by the area in recent years.

Check out this fascinating drone video of an abandoned village in the hills of western Turkey, compliments of top AirVuz contributor jesus_tr.  It's called Kayaköy, and it's just a few km/mi from the town of Fethiye in the Muğla Province.  Much of the town was built in the 18th century, and it had a population of about 6k at the beginning of 20th century.  During the ethnic violence that erupted during and immediately after World War I, the town was completely abandoned.  It remains what you see today - a ghost town.

Among the permanent casualties in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina is the former Six Flags Amusement Park.  Situated in New Orleans East, the park opened on a 140 acre site in 2002.  It has been closed since the historic storm and subsequent flooding devastated the city in August, 2005.   In the mean time, it's been used to film a number of feature movies and TV shows, most famously the 2015 sci-fi blockbuster Jurassic World.  You can see this eery reminder of pre-Katrina New Orleans in this drone video by Bumble Bee Productions.  

Top contributor and pilot 60 Seconds used a drone to create this amazing aerial tour of an abandoned bridge in the USA's Pacific Northwest.  The Vance Creek Bridge was built in the 1920's to serve the logging industry in Washington.  As the fortunes of the state's forestry sector waned, the bridge was de-commissioned in the 1970's.  Now it's a major attraction for hikers who seek out this amazing span, which stands 106 meters (347 ft.) tall.  It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

During most of the Cold War years, the Soviet Union maintained the world's largest air force.  At its peak in about 1980, the USSR had an active strength of 10,000 aircraft, significantly larger than the combined forces of NATO.  With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, many of these aircraft were simply abandoned in parks around the vast country.  In this drone video by Drone Nest, you'll get a bird's eye view of one of these aircraft cemeteries in the Moscow Oblast.

Opening with a one-of-a-kind dronie, this video by top AirVuz contributor and pilot Fujiabra Films will leave you wanting to replicate his bold moves. His location? The Sathorn Unique Tower in Bangkok, Thailand. The unfinished skyscraper was supposed to be filled with high-rise condominiums, but construction on the building was halted in 1997 due to the Asian financial crisis. The 607-foot skyscraper was already 80% complete, but has yet to be touched in the two decades since being abandoned.

Contributor and drone pilot Sneba created this fascinating aerial video of a "ship cemetery" in the northern reaches of Russia.  It's situated off the Kola Peninsula in the Murmansk Oblast (province), the northernmost of the provinces on the Russian mainland and part of the Northwest Federal District.  Lying in these icy waters are dozens of nuclear-powered ships which are no longer in service but which have not been properly de-commissioned.  It's an example of how the end of the Cold War created its own set of problems.  

Ghost towns are prominent features of parts of the American West.  As the USA's western interior developed at a breakneck pace in the late 1800's, it was not uncommon for some towns to suffer setbacks such as mine depletion, an outbreak of disease, or not being sited on new railroad routes.  Many of these communities were simply abandoned and forgotten to the ages.  AirVuz contributor and pilot DRONEPIXEL created an epic drone video of one of these ghostly sights, a small mining town near Las Vegas, Nevada.   

In a land full of rainforests and mountains, mudslides and floodings are an all-too-common occurrence in Colombia. In this poignant film, Alejandrogutierrezlonga flies over the still-standing historic ruins of Gramalote, Colombia, abandoned after devastating mudslides and floods. The somber footage captures the dignity of the once beautiful structures that have, at least for now, escaped total destruction. The city is located in North Santander, one of the 32 departments (states) into which Colombia is divided.

Contributor Robert Banfi created this amazing drone video of what was once Europe's largest military barracks.  It's near the Hungarian town of Hajmáskér, in the western part of the country.  The base was built in the late 1800's and served as the main artillery training range for the Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War.  It served as a Germany military base towards the end of World War II, then a Red Army base, before being finally abandoned in 1990 when the Warsaw Pact dissolved. 

Award-winning contributor Postandfly created this beautiful aerial video of the "ghost town" of Real de Catorce, once one of the great mining towns of Central Mexico.  Situated in the state of San Luis Potosi, it's roughly in the middle of the great triangle formed by Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara.  The town was founded as a result of a large nearby silver discovery in the late 18th century, and at its height, it was one of the biggest sources for the highly silver-dependent Spanish Empire.  

An abandoned military base in the mountainous Balkans make for an epic 4x4 road trip and a drone video to memorialize it.  Contributor Travel Lifestyle traveled with some friends in a Jeep on an adventure trip to an old Yugoslav Army base in the mountains that came to form international border separating Croatia from neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Using ground footage to supplement their drone footage, they did an amazing job recording the highlights of their 4x4 trip to this eerie place.  

Contributor N.I.X created this rather haunting drone video of an abandoned hospital complex on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany.  It's called the Beelitz Hospital (Beelitz Heilstätten) and it was constructed as a military hospital in 1898.  Famously, the hospital treated a young corporal named Adolph Hitler when he was injured in a mustard gas attack in the closing weeks of World War I.  It became a Soviet military hospital during the Cold War Years, and was mostly abandoned in the 1990's.  

Contributor and pilot Jona Bend shot this amazing drone video of an entire abandoned theme park in the Philippines.  The Fantasy World park, intended to be a sort Philippines equivalent of Disney World, was built in a remote area of southern Luzon in 2001.  Due to the owner's financial difficulties, the park near Batangas (one of the provinces of southern Luzon) was abandoned and never completed.   It now stands, empty and abandoned, as a bizarre reminder of an ambitious but ill-fated investment.  

The long-deserted White Rocks Resort on the Mediterranean island of Malta is an urban explorer's paradise as seen here in contributor rikk08's aerial footage.  The complex has been sitting, untended and slowly decaying, for two decades on the coast of Pembroke.  Instead of gathering tourists for its initial intended purpose, it has drawn in street artists and vandals over the years — becoming an eerie graffiti gallery for URBEX enthusiasts.  Check it out from above in this drone video by contributor Rikk08.

An abandoned airport deep in the forests of the Czech Republic makes for a phenomenal drone video by contributor and pilot Ludoweet.  He does an incredible job of capturing the oddness of the scene - a paved runway in the middle of endless rolling hills covered with pine trees.  Going back to the Middle Ages, the lands of the Czech Republic have always occupied an important strategic position in Central Europe.  Later, during the Cold War period, what was then Czechoslovakia was covered with Red Army bases and Red Air Force airfields.

Top contributor Ludoweet used a drone to capture an abandoned military base in his native Czech Republic.  This type of scene is not uncommon in the Czech Republic: when the Warsaw Pact dissolved following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many of the old Red Army and Red Air Force military assets in Central and Eastern Europe were simply vacated.  In this video, Ludoweet used a DJI drone to aerially film an old rocket base deep in the Czech forest, its missile tubes clearly arranged in a triangular fashion.

The Pontiac Silverdome was built as the home stadium of the Detroit Lions, Detroit's National Football League team.  It also was the home of the Detroit Pistons NBA team from 1978-88.  Built in the 1970's in Pontiac, a Michigan auto factory town northwest of Detroit, the stadium was abandoned in 2006, a few years after the Lions decamped for the new Ford Field in downtown Detroit.  AirVuz contributor and pilot Garci1jd used a drone to aerially film this relic before its ultimate demolition in 2017.  

The corporate behemoth known as General Motors was largely assembled via series of acquisitions in the first few decades of the 20th century.  Arguably the most important of these was Fisher Body, the world's largest auto body maker; GM acquired 60% of Fisher in 1919 and the remainder in 1926.  In this drone video by AirVuz contributor and pilot skyview productions, you'll get an aerial view of Fisher's Plant #21, one of its most storied plants.  Opened in 1919, it was shuttered in 1982 and is now in an abandoned state.

La Vela di Calatrava, or the City of Sport, is an unfinished architectural structure that was designed as a multi-purpose sports complex for the University of Rome. The project broke ground in 2005 and was supposed to host the 2009 World Swimming Championships. After a various financial and construction set backs, the building still sits empty and is estimated to cost around 660 million euros. See La Vela di Calatrava from above, courtesy of TAT-VT.

In this drone video by AVEA - Alta Vista Epic Aerials, you'll get a bird's eye view of an abandoned town in west-central Spain called Granadilla.   The town's population was forced to leave during the 1950's when a large reservoir was built in the area.  It's part of the province of Cáceres‎, which in turn is part of the Extremadura region.  The town's castle, featured prominently in the video, was built in the late 15th century.  Since the 1980's, it's been part of a recovery program for abandoned villages. 

For centuries, the economy of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico was built on one commodity: sugar.  The sugar cane fields which ringed its coast fed some of the largest sugar mills in the world.  For a variety of reasons, the industry went into decline beginning in the 1930s, and production today is virtually non-existent. In this drone video by Pedro's Airtime, you'll get a bird's eye view of the now-abandoned Aguada mill, the first integrated mill on the island and for decades one of the world's largest.

One of the stranger sights of modern Turkey is a giant abandoned real estate development in Bolu, a province in the East Marmara region, roughly halfway between Istanbul and Ankara.  Seen in this drone video by Murat Turna, the Burj Al Babas project consists of hundreds of high-end "fairy castle" design homes at the base of the Köroğlu Mountains.  Unable to find sufficient buyers, the US $200 million development sought bankruptcy protection before it was completed; the luxury properties remain empty and abandoned.   

Contributor @santorelloapr managed to aerially film one of the world's best known modern "ghost towns".  The town is called Consonno, and it's in the Lecco Province, about an hour drive northeast of Milan.  The city caught the attention of a wealthy Italian Count in the 1960's, who poured millions of Lira into turning it into a version of Monte Carlo he called the City of Toys.  Unfortunately, an landslide in the 1970's destroyed the road access to the still-uncompleted city, and it's never been restored.  

Top AirVuz contributor and pilot AerialRhianna created this epic drone video of an old abandoned mill in rural Oregon in the northwestern USA.  The mill has become something of a studio for graffiti artists wishing to practice their trade in a serene and secluded environment of the Pacific Northwest wilderness.  This highly cinematic video of the mill and a young female artist who uses it as her canvas is spectacular.  The site is located near Veronia, in the far northwestern corner of the state.  

Check out this drone video of a stunning spot in the far eastern part of Turkey, compliments of contributor Tansel Öztürk.  It was filmed near the city of Ani, in the Kars province, near the border with Armenia, in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.  The city was the capital of the Bagratid Armenia and was one of the largest cities in the world in the 10th and 11th centuries AD.  It suffered a one-two punch of the Mongols and an earthquake in the 12th and 13th centuries, never to recover.  

Check out this fascinating drone video of a "boat graveyard" in New York City, compliments of contributor 60 Seconds.  It's located on the southwestern side of Staten Island, on a tidal river known as Arthur Kill.  Officially known as the Donjon Iron and Metal Scrap Processing Facility, it was established in the 1930's. Hundreds of 20th century vintage ships lie here, including a number of World War II combat ships.  The facility was used as a filming location for the 2010 thriller "Salt" starring Angelina Jolie.

Contributor gokhanakman created this drone video of a notable landmark on the outskirts of Istanbul, Turkey.  It's called the Prinkipo Greek Orthodox Orphanage, and it's located on Büyükada, one a group of nine islands situated in the Sea of Marmara, on the western fringes of the city.  Built around the turn of the 20th century, it served as an orphanage until the 1960's.  Believed to be the largest wooden building in Europe, its state of disrepair has put it atop numerous lists of endangered historical sites.  

Sarıkamış is a town in the Kars province of northeastern Turkey.  It came under control of the Russian Empire at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, in which the Ottoman Empire was defeated and Russia re-established itself on the Black Sea following its defeat in the Crimean War two decades earlier.  During the four+ decades when it was under Russian control, a hunting lodge was built here by Tsar Nicholas II.   Known as the Katerina Mansion, you can see it from above in this drone video by Spyd7r.

Content creator and drone pilot Matthew Chirico created this beautiful drone video of a historic spot in New York city called the Jacob Riis Bathhouse, the centerpiece of a park of the same name on the Rockaway Peninsula.  The park was largely the work of the powerful New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses in the 1930's.  The area fell into a state of disrepair in the 1960's; the park has been reborn under the National Park Service but the bathhouse has not reopened despite numerous plans.

Top contributor NGreyTravels created this amazing drone video of an abandoned limestone prison quarry in the Baltic republic of Estonia.  It's near a village of the same name in Harju County, in the northwestern part of the country.  The quarry was created in the 1930's to mine a particular type of marble, and during the time when Estonia was under control of the Soviet Union it also became a prison.  Since being flooded and abandoned, the site now attracts the attention of artists, movie makers, and...drone pilots!  

After Nazi Germany invaded and quickly conquered Denmark in the early part of World War II, the US seized the gigantic Danish territory known as the island of Greenland as a protective measure. Once the US joined the war and was fighting the Battle of the Atlantic, it decided to establish a base called Bluie East Two near the town of Ikateq on the island's eastern coast.  The base was essentially abandoned after the war, leaving the eerie scene which you'll see in this amazing drone video by sfdrones.  

AirVuz contributor and pilot hakisair combined drone and ground camera footage to create this video of a "ghost town" called Cerro Gordo in Southern California.  It's an old mining town in the Owens Valley, northeast of Los Angeles.  The mines around the town produced silver, lead, and zinc from the mid-1800's before being shut down in the 1950's.  The town, located a short distance from Death Valley, was recently sold to a group of investors for about $1.4 million according to a report from CNBC.  

AirVuz contributor and pilot used a DJI X7 camera mounted to an Inspire 2 drone to create this fascinating video of an abandoned cement factory in Greece.  It's located in Chalcis (Chalkida), the main city on the large island of Evia (Euboea) that runs parallel to (and to the east of) the Attic Peninsula.  The factory is adjacent to the Euripus Bridge (which you'll see in the background), the more modern of the two spans which connect the island to the mainland over the narrows of the Euripus Strait.  

Pripyat, Ukraine was founded in 1970 to house workers to build and then operate the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. When one of the reactors exploded during a testing procedure on April 26th, 1986, the town of nearly 50,000 people was evacuated and has not been re-occupied due to contamination. Cinematographer Tomáš Golej created this amazing drone video to commemorate three heroes: a trio of workers who knowingly risked their lives to prevent an even worse disaster.

Abandoned for decades, the Buzludzha Monument is still one of the most recognizable modern landmarks of Bulgaria.  Seen here in this excellent drone video by top contributor Mattcoq, It sits on the slopes of its namesake mountain in the middle of the country.  Constructed in the 1970's during the period when Bulgaria was part of the Warsaw Pact, it commemorates the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party (the predecessor to the Bulgarian Communist Party) in the 1890's.  It was abandoned after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  

Check out this amazing drone video of a well known "ghost town" in Southern Italy, compliments of Luca T.  It's called Pentedattilo, and it's located near the "toe" of Italy in the region of Calabria.  The town was founded by Greek colonists in the 7th century BC.  It was a thriving commercial center for centuries, falling into decline when the seat of the Roman Empire moved to Constantinople.  Conquered by the Vikings and later the Saracens, the town never recovered from a devastating earthquake in 1783.

No other major American city ever grew as quickly or shrank so dramatically as Detroit.  From its peak around 1950, the population within the city limits has declined by well over 60%.  Among other things, it's resulted in thousands upon thousands of abandoned buildings - upwards of 70,000 by some counts.  If there is a bit of a silver lining here, it's become a bando heaven for first person view (FPV) pilots.  You'll get a taste of this phenomenon in this excellent "bando tour" by FPV pilot KittFPV.    

Check out this rather haunting but highly cinematic drone video of an abandoned school in Bulgaria, compliments of AirVuz contributor and pilot kskaerialcinematography. The video was filmed in Targovishte, the capital of its namesake province, which lies in the north central part of the country.  The town is situated about 335 km (around 210 mi.) northeast of Bulgaria and about 125 km (around 80 mi.) west of the port city of Varna.  Occupied for thousands of years, Targovishte became an important market town during the Middle Ages.  

Check out this drone video of what was once the world's largest psychiatric hospital, compliments of AirVuz contributor and pilot Novice Quads.  It's called the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, and it's located in the New York City suburb of Brentwood on Long Island.  Opened in 1931, at its peak the facility had a resident population of nearly 14,000.  While parts of the facility are still operational, most of its buildings were shut down as institutionalization fell out of favor as a treatment method for the mentally ill.  

Check out this fascinating drone video of an abandoned town in southern Italy.  The "ghost town" of Craco is located in Basilicata, at the "ankle" of peninsular Italy.  Settled during the Antiquity, Craco experienced a series of natural disasters in the 20th century, ranging from drought to landslides to floods.  After a 1980 earthquake, the town was abandoned.  It's since been used as a filming location for numerous feature movies, notably as the spot where Judas committed suicide in the 2004 epic Passion of the Christ.

AirVuz contributor manumolinadrone brings us this fascinating drone video of a town abandoned during the Spanish Civil War.  It's called Belchite, and it's located in the province of Zaragosa, one of three which makes up the Aragon region of north-central Spain.  During the late summer of 1937, the town was the site of a fierce battle between Republican and Nationalist forces, over the course of which the town was completely destroyed.   Following the war, a new village was built, and the destroyed Belchite was left as a memorial. 

Fort Macomb is an abandoned military site on the eastern outskirts of New Orleans, Louisiana.  It's located on the Chef Menteur Pass, a natural waterway which connects Lake Pontchartrain with Lake Borgne.  Seen here in this drone video by Bumble Bee Productions, the fort was originally constructed in 1822.  Shaped like a pie wedge, the brick fortification was taken over by Confederate forces during the US Civil War but did not see any action during the conflict; it caught suffered a fire after the war and was soon abandoned by the US Army.

New AirVuz contributor Jackson Groves brings us this excellent drone video of an abandoned Berber village in Tunisia.  It's called Zriba Olia, and it's located about a half hour drive from Zaghouan, in the interior of the northeastern part of the country.  This area is near the southern extent of the Dorsal, an eastern extension of the Atlas Mountains that run through the northern parts of Algeria and Morocco and which are the traditional home of the Berber ethnic group.  The village shown was abandoned in the 1960's.  

Check out this drone video of a creepy-looking abandoned bridge in the USA's New England Region, compliments of AirVuz contributor and pilot DaveIN NH.  It's called the Back Cove Swing Bridge, and it's located in Portland, Maine.  It's what's known as a swing-bridge, a 19th century design which allowed for the passage of ships via twisting the bridge from an in-line position to a perpendicular one.  Built in the mid-1800's to connect Portland with Yarmouth, the bridge was damaged by an arson-induced fire in 1984 and abandoned.  

The now-abandoned Birnbeck Pier is a well-known landmark on England's Bristol Channel, the estuary of the River Severn in the southwestern part of the country.  It's situated in the town of Weston-super-Mare, a few km/mi west of the city of Bristol.  Opened in 1867, it's the only UK pier to connect to an island, specifically the tiny Birnbeck Island.   Seen here in this drone video by Marian Peciar, the pier was taken over for military purposes during World War II; it never regained its popularity and has been abandoned since the 1970's.  

Check out this fantastic drone video of a well-known abandoned site in the Midlands region of the United Kingdom, compliments of AirVuz contributor CoreyFPV.  He used a DJI Mavic Pro to film the Bass Maltings complex in Sleaford, which is part of Lincolnshire in the East Midlands region.  The site houses eight buildings originally constructed for the Bass Brewing Company in the early 20th century.  Closed since the 1950's, the buildings are protected as Grade II structures on the National Heritage List for England.

Check out this excellent drone video of the well-known abandoned village of Foinikas on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, compliments of AirVuz contributor Travel and Drones.  Located on the southwestern part of the island, it's believed to have been founded by the Knights Templar in the 12th century.  It was subsequently occupied by Turkish Cypriots for centuries, many of whom were displaced following the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974.  Its final came from a dam project which put much of the town's land underwater.  

Founded in 1905, Continental Motors was one of the USA's first manufacturers of internal combustion engines.  It opened its first Detroit plant on East Jefferson Street in 1911.  The Detroit plant supplied engines for many of the storied names in early automotive history - companies like Hudson, Abbott-Detroit, and others who lacked the vertical integration of GM and Ford.  Seen in this drone video by skyview productions, the plant switched to aero engine manufacture but was shuttered in 1955.

AirVuz contributor and pilot iOleg brings us this fascinating drone video from the Russian Far East.  The video was filmed over the settlement of Sinegorye, which lies on the Kolyma River in the oblast (province) of Magadan.  The development of Sinegorye occurred in the 1970's in connection with a giant hydroelectricity project, following which the town was largely abandoned.  Previously, the Kolyma region was the site of some of the most notorious work camps in the Gulag, the vast penal system established during the Stalinist era.  

Take an aerial tour of an important relic of English industrial history in this excellent drone video by AirVuz contributor Dr0ne Werks.  The Magpie Mine was once one of the more important sources of lead.  It's located in Derbyshire, one of the counties of the East Midlands region.  The Magpie Mine produced large quantities of this important industrial metal for roughly two centuries before closing in 1958.  A (legally protected) Scheduled Monument, the disused mine is operated by the Peak District Mines Historical Society.  

Multiple Drone Video of the Week Winner oculusfilms brings us this haunting drone video from the scene of one of history's greatest industrial accidents: the explosion of the No. 4 Reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine in April, 1986.  The disaster forced the evacuation of the nearby city of Pripyat, none of whose 50k+ population ever returned.  One of only two accidents with the highest severity rating under the International Nuclear Event Scale, the disaster caused thousands of cancer deaths.