Child injured during Lake Eola Park Florida Drone Show. – sUAS News

Difficult news from North America, a drone show has gone sadly very wrong at Lake Eola Park, Florida. A seven year old boy was struck and taken to hospital.

I reached out to Sky Elements for comment and they sent the following media response:-

Sky Elements Drones wants to extend our sincere hope for a full and speedy recovery to those impacted at our Lake Eola show in Orlando on Saturday, Dec. 21. The well-being of our audience is our utmost priority, and we regret any distress or inconvenience caused.

We are diligently working with the FAA and City of Orlando officials to determine the cause and are committed to establishing a clear picture of what transpired. Millions of people see our shows annually, and we are committed to maintaining the highest safety regulations set forth by the FAA.  

My layman’s thoughts on this incident had me wondering what the practice sign off performances looked like and why a geofence of some sort did not stop swarm elements flying towards the crowds.

Luckily we have two drone show experts on our weekly Drone and Sundry hangout. I asked them what they thought.

Mark Wingad, lightshow drone airframe builder and drone show producer Stephen Sutton of Flyby Guys

From Mark, “For those wondering it wasn’t a hack – it looks like compass issues and something else, however a log off the drones would reveal more, for separation from the crown in America they use the 2:1 ratio – two feet in height is 1 foot horizontal as standard. If the drones are 200 feet up the crowd has to me more than 100 feet away, but they may have a reduced distance”

Stephens thoughts, “Depending on the system, (the Unify system I’m not familiar with), you should not be able to launch the drones with the Geofence not loaded.

The velocity of the drones was also concerning, but the size of the buffer zone and the geofence should have mitigated this.

Drone calibration is most likely the cause of the drones behaving as they did, but the geofence (if active) should have stopped them reaching the audience.”

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