GoPro Flies Out of Car During Crash, Records Car Flipping Through the Air

There isn't much info about this video, and there is also a bit of speculation as to whether it's real or not, but it's certainly worth sharing. This GoPro captures something spectacular. 

A dash-mounted GoPro captures the action during an autocross race. At 1:37, the car begins to slide out of control. The car then slides off the road to the left and begins to flip. The windshield cracks as the car turns over and the GoPro falls onto the ground, looking upward to reveal the entire car flipping through the air. 

Some are saying that this footage is obviously fake and the camera was behind the broken windshield and then "appeared" on the ground. Others point out that this footage has been slowed down with software like Twixtor and the strange artifacts are caused by that software and not by any trickery. Perhaps the camera fell out of one of the windows as the car flipped. 

What's your take? Is it real, or is it the next viral hoax? 

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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15 Comments

It wasn't so much the video I paid close attention it was the sound. The sounds of the car rolling and the rocks and everything happening makes me believe this video is 100% real. Take this video into Premiere and try to use sounds to create the same thing, you'll find they don't sound natural at all.

I am confused. The sound of the rocks falling on the gopro prove it's real?

"Yup, I'm flying through the air. This is not good."

The transition where the camera is recording inside and then out is certainly questionable.

It is obviously fake. Camera would stay behind. It couldn't capture the vehicle flying over it. Even if it was propelled forward it would record the flight...

Fake. The camera stays in the car through the first roll, so then on the second roll it got flung dozens of meters ahead, came to a very sudden stop facing perfectly vertical, just in time for the car to make a third roll over it, still quite high in the air?

No.

1) Based on the speed and what we can see of the first roll, it's incredibly unlikely this car would roll 3+ times, and certainly not still have that kind of height on the 3rd roll.

2) It's incredibly unlikely the camera could be flung so fast and far ahead, and yet instantly come to a rest in the perfect spot, facing in the perfect direction.

3) The video shows no 'flight time' for the camera being flung ahead, it's as if they expect you to believe the camera got planted on the ground during the second roll... and somehow the 3rd roll is magically over that same spot.

If the camera was attached to the windshield and the windshield broke from the frame on the first roll, then the nose of the car spiked on the second suddenly slowing its forward momentum and sending it end over end, inertia could easily carry the windshield with attached camera forward of the car a millisecond before the car passed overhead. That's not so far fetched. The camera may have even still been attached to the windshield making it slide rather that flip, catching and grabbing on the grass as it does, stopping it in time to catch the passing car.

That's a perfectly plausible explanation. Calling it fake just because it's unlikely is kind of silly. Of course it's unlikely. That's why it's interesting. It doesn't make it impossible though. Stranger things happen.

At first I was more or less convinced of fake thing, but did some digging around (as the video comes from my country) and starting to think the video is legit and the real thing..

http://www.ewrc-results.com/profile.php?p=18028&t=Martin-Kder
http://www.ewrc.cz/ewrc/image_browse.php?id=293930&entry=

+ checking the Facebook profiles of riders and seeing they have no experience in the industry whatsoever

i dont think it's fake. It seems like the windshield came out and slide on the grass for quite a distance before hitting something that stopped the sliding at the same time the impact of that hit caused the camera to flip pointing upwards. these are just my assumptions. it's the only way i think why the camera is ahead of the car cuz sliding (little friction) VS. car rolling (higher friction), thus capturing car flying over it. i could be wrong.

Wow if people can't immediately see this is mostly animation they need to have their prescription lenses checked.

What part?

Stranger things have happened. I think even if the go pro had have remained in the car it would be a spectacular video.

At first I thought it was amazing how the camera managed to land upright and not move at all, capturing the car flying through the air, from one side of the frame to the other. But thinking about it, that doesn't make sense... How was the dashcam at one point pressed up against the broken glass as the windshield hit the ground, and then the next moment the car is entering the frame from the left and flying overhead - with a vehicle moving as fast as that one was, the camera would have been left behind with nothing but audio of the car crashing in the distance.

Also, very questionable, warping transitions; what's going on there? If you slow the video down to 0.25 using YouTube's controls you can see the borders of the warping frames, particularly in the bottom right corner. And why is the cracked windshield slowly disappearing, dissolving into another clip of grass and rocks? And blades of grass fading in and out...

Its a good attempt and believable if you're to glance at it quickly on Facebook for example and move on without giving it much thought.

The force of the car flipping could have thrown it out of a window. The artifacts you speak of are from slomo plugins like twixtor. It's creating frames digitally

But for the car to throw the camera out the window and for it to land so perfectly still and upright... I don't think this is possible. It also doesn't look like the camera is being thrown out the window, it looks like its attached to the windshield and is left behind as it slams against the ground, then the windshield starts to fade away, possibly from the digitally created frames you mention, possibly from some sort of trickery going on.

Is there a version where the video isn't slowed down and the sound is continuous throughout? Might make it easier to tell if real or fake.