Drones Collide, Fall From Sky in Florida Light Show, Seriously Injuring 7-Year-Old Boy (yahoo.com) 79
"Drones collided, fell from the sky and hit a little boy after 'technical difficulties' during a holiday show..." reports the Orlando Sentinel.
They note that a press release from the city said the 8 p.m. show was then cancelled: The company behind the drones, Sky Elements, was in its second year of the contract with the city, the release said. Sky Elements said they operate drone shows throughout the country with millions of viewers annually and are committed to maintaining FAA safety regulations, the company said in a statement released Sunday afternoon. The organization wished for a "speedy recovery" of those impacted by Saturday's show at Lake Eola, the statement said. "The well-being of our audience is our utmost priority, and we regret any distress or inconvenience caused," the statement said. "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."
The show is in its third year, often drawing crowds of roughly 25,000, according to the city. But there has never been an incident before. The Federal Aviation Administration regulates drones and light shows and permitted the Holiday Drone Show at Lake Eola on Saturday. Now they are investigating the incident which they said began as drones collided and fell into the crowd at the park, spokesperson Kristen Alsop said in an email... Eyewitness videos on social media show multiple green and red drones falling from the sky.
The mother of the 7-year-old boy hit by a falling drone told a local TV station that the holiday show "ended in nightmares," adding that it happened just days before Christmas. She believes big-audience drone light shows need more safety precautions. "This should not happen. No family should be going through this." She added on Facebook that her 7-year-old son is now "going into emergency heart surgery off of just trying to watch a drone show."
She adds that the city of Orlando and the drone company behind the light show "really have some explaining to do." Responding to comments on Facebook, she posted two hours ago: "Thank you everyone. He is still in surgery."
They note that a press release from the city said the 8 p.m. show was then cancelled: The company behind the drones, Sky Elements, was in its second year of the contract with the city, the release said. Sky Elements said they operate drone shows throughout the country with millions of viewers annually and are committed to maintaining FAA safety regulations, the company said in a statement released Sunday afternoon. The organization wished for a "speedy recovery" of those impacted by Saturday's show at Lake Eola, the statement said. "The well-being of our audience is our utmost priority, and we regret any distress or inconvenience caused," the statement said. "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."
The show is in its third year, often drawing crowds of roughly 25,000, according to the city. But there has never been an incident before. The Federal Aviation Administration regulates drones and light shows and permitted the Holiday Drone Show at Lake Eola on Saturday. Now they are investigating the incident which they said began as drones collided and fell into the crowd at the park, spokesperson Kristen Alsop said in an email... Eyewitness videos on social media show multiple green and red drones falling from the sky.
The mother of the 7-year-old boy hit by a falling drone told a local TV station that the holiday show "ended in nightmares," adding that it happened just days before Christmas. She believes big-audience drone light shows need more safety precautions. "This should not happen. No family should be going through this." She added on Facebook that her 7-year-old son is now "going into emergency heart surgery off of just trying to watch a drone show."
She adds that the city of Orlando and the drone company behind the light show "really have some explaining to do." Responding to comments on Facebook, she posted two hours ago: "Thank you everyone. He is still in surgery."
Re:Still saver then aviation (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Still saver then aviation (Score:4, Interesting)
And fireworks also cause injuries and death. Because shells filled with explosive gunpowder are expected to be safe...
Fireworks are safer than drones for now, but that is just because they are a more mature tech. But this will be handled just like the occasional (and tragic) fireworks injury is handled.
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And fireworks also cause injuries and death.
The best solution is for everyone to stay home and watch simulated fireworks on their iPhones.
Anything else is too dangerous.
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Fireworks explode safely in the air. Except when they don't. Fireworks start fires, explode too early or too late, Most problems are caused by individuals being idiots, but even professional fireworks cause damage or injuries. I'm assuming you didn't bother to research firework problems before writing your comment.
I mean, by your "logic", drones are perfectly safe since they have rotors to counteract gravity before they have a chance to fall on our heads. Don't tax yourself trying to overthink it.
But it
Even small towns have it figured out (Score:3)
even professional fireworks cause damage or injuries.
The professional shows are generally smart enough to not operate over the crowd. Empty fields, rivers, lakes, etc.
:-) You don't put the show over the crowd.
My small home town HS has its varsity football and baseball fields next to each other. Bleachers next to both. Town fireworks shows put the people in the football bleachers and the show launchers over the baseball field. The football field a buffer. Even small town hicks have had this figured out for several generations.
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You've never had a battery tip over after firing the first two out of forty shots? Or the funny uncle who's already had five drinks more than he should who just wants to show off this really cool trick?
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And fireworks also cause injuries and death.
When done properly? With the fireworks over an empty field or river or lake, etc? Ie not over the crowd?
Drones should also not be over the crowd.
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Fireworks are safer than drones for now
A long history of accidents with fireworks both professional displays and idiots who buy them themselves would disagree with you. A 7 year old boy got injured because multiple drones rained down from the sky. I still remember at a school in my city where some 15 people ended up in hospital with several critical due to a single firework going the wrong way, and my friend still has a scar from his armpit to his elbow as a reminder.
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By numbers you are correct, but I was talking by event. We have, I don't know, tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? of (non-personal) firework shows per year and maybe a few hundred drone shows before large audiences. I'm guessing about those numbers, but the local township sports field seems to set off fireworks every few weeks during the summer, so if anything I'm underestimating the fireworks shows. Per X shows, fireworks are way safer for now. But I have every confidence that drone folks will
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Fireworks are safer than drones for now, but that is just because they are a more mature tech.
No, it's because fireworks shows have an exclusion zone. Nobody is allowed to be underneath the exploding fireworks. If the drone show had an appropriate exclusion zone, the falling drone would have hit no one.
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Yeah and one of my close friends was injured as a kid during a professional firework show. Mind you his family invested the payout they got into a fund for his future so he's not complaining, but he was effectively crippled for 3 years of his school life unable to move his right arm and spent years in recovery.
Fireworks have sound (and smell) (Score:2)
In my day we used to just use fireworks for the night shows. I think kids are still impressed today by them...
I was about to say the boom of fireworks adds to the lights, but I guess we get a little bit of boom noise from the drone crashes. I got to admit, the smell of fireworks exudes fun, but that is probably conditioning.
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The light show serves a useful purpose: the reward in theory is economic for the city and value for residents which encourages people to keep living in the area or visit there.. which is the only way it makes sense for them to be using their municipal taxes paid by residents to fund the show. Localities put effort into creating attractions which ultimately serve to bolster the local economy.
There also should in theory be no reason they can't operate a drone light show safety. They can start by observi
Re: Still saver then aviation (Score:2, Insightful)
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Lol... "It doesn't matter that this boy died, at least businesses made money!"
Nobody died.
The kid was injured.
Re: Still saver then aviation (Score:2)
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Just to be clear... very badly injured.
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Okay, by that logic we should ban boating, fishing, swimming, surfing, SCUBA diving, hiking, rock climbing, spelunking, skiing, hang gliding, bungee jumping, skydiving, motocross, car racing, martial arts, boxing, football, soccer, baseball, horse riding... the list is nearly endless.
These are all things that don't serve a purpose like a medivac helicopter, but businesses make money off of them because people are currently allowed to weigh the risks vs the enjoyment that they get and make a choice on whethe
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They can start by observing precautions in the operation of their drones, such as not flying any of them so close together that there's a risk of collision.
Another thing you can do is make your spectators sit in designated areas, and have roofing in the form of well-supported wire mesh built out over their heads. Meaning that a falling drone would impact the mesh instead of the bodies of a crowd in the stands.
Pro fireworks displays had this figured out long ago. Don't put the show over the crowd. Keep it simple.
Re:Still saver then aviation (Score:4, Interesting)
"...going into emergency heart surgery off of just trying to watch a drone show."
If he's in "heart surgery" after being hit by something then I'm playing my pre-existing condition card.
Getting hit by a drone causes cuts and bruises, not heart trauma.
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"...going into emergency heart surgery off of just trying to watch a drone show."
If he's in "heart surgery" after being hit by something then I'm playing my pre-existing condition card.
Getting hit by a drone causes cuts and bruises, not heart trauma.
Exactly what I was thinking initially, but maybe not. Here's a slightly more detail-rich story [wesh.com]. They're saying the impact was so hard that it damaged a heart valve.
I mean yeah, if I were playing the odds, my money would still be on commotio cordis, and that after defibrillation, they just happened to discover some congenital heart defect (in which case he's lucky it happened while observed and in a place where medical care would have been close by), but blunt cardiac trauma is a real thing. Depending on
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Can't rule out getting hit hard from another person/getting trampled, either.
Re: Still saver then aviation (Score:3)
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I'm in Canada, the local (national) air show does not take place over a lake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Still saver then aviation. Just saw a medivac helicopter in Turkey crashed recently. But there's no concerted effort to get them banned.
A better point is that drone shows are safer than fireworks.
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Actually, drone shows are safer than lots of things.
For example -- based on the current available historical data, you're far more likely to be hospitalized as the result of a metor exploding overhead than you are by being struck by a drone at a drone light show.
In 2013 a meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk causing almost 1,500 people to be injured, hudreds of those requiring hospital treatment.
Almost a century earlier, at Tunguska, an unknown number of people died in a very similar event.
Yep, falling space ro
Don't put the show over the crowd (Score:2)
Still saver then aviation.
Only because of their toy sizes do less damage.
Still, what idiots decide to fly over the crowd? Take a lesson from fireworks events. Do it at the local HS football field, crowd in bleachers. Fireworks or drover over the empty football field. Similar with other venues.
and Sky Elements can just go away with the victims (Score:2, Flamebait)
and Sky Elements can just go away with the victims left holding the bag for the doctor bills
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Why do you say that? They can obviously be sued for personal injury damages caused by the company's operation or their drones. Which should include not only the doctors bills but all the other damages related to pain and suffering as well as mental anguish, etc.
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And the cities, etc, that they work with almost certainly required a large certificate of insurance for the event-- so there is at least some money around to pay claims.
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The FAA is mostly concerned with airplanes/helicopters/etc. Their regulations are chiefly aimed at preventing drone operators from providing airborne hazards to manned aircraft.
You can still comply with FAA regs and screw up something in your drone swarm, resulting in an injury on the ground.
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when airplanes do what these drones did, FAA brings things to a screeching halt, even to manufacturing of said craft.
I don't see a difference here than compared to how they actually handle other aircraft.
They cleared out the airspace at the respective altitude, ensures the fleet in question was grounded (it already had been by the operator just prior), and started their investigation into the cause.
The FAA does not halt manufacturing of an aircraft upon a single failure without additional reasoning to.
That reasoning may still come about during the investigation of course.
With the known risk grounded and the airspace at th
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Yes, but they have a completely different rules and enforcement regime for large manned aircraft. Just getting one of those in the air legally is much more difficult.
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The FAA Part 107 regulations for drone pilots are also designed to protect people on the ground.
Specifically, the U.S. FAA regulation is 14 CFR Part 107.39 Operations over human beings.
No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being unless—
(a) That human being is directly participating in the operation of the small unmanned aircraft;
(b) That human being is located under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that can provide reasonable protection from a falling small unm
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Well if you look at the video of the incident, it appears that part of the swarm (the rightmost edge, from the perspective of the cameraman) is flying over part of a crowd. And the swarm drops one drone onto that crowd.
Looks like they weren't FAA compliant after all.
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I look forward to our President-elect privatizing airline security.
Nice troll.
Regarding the drone operators, future President Musk can't extort money from them, so they will be banned. Also, Christmas festivals.
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Because privatizing under el Bunko means that he sells off whatever agency or service to his billionaire friends who return the favor for favoring their companies by pumping up el Bunko's "companies". It is merely another twist on pay to play. He's for sale; I wonder how much his minder in the Kremlin will pay him for Ukraine.
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To be fair.. the FAA has been failing very badly of late.
Boeing??? Where was the FAA? "Oh, Boeing's okay, they can self-certify their aircraft, there'll be no conflict of interests there"
Drones over NJ/NY??? Surely the FAA should have come out and made it clear, right from the get-go, that these sightings were almost entirely down to manned aircraf that the FAA knew about and had records for?
Now this drone show which would have been operating under a wiaver from the FAA. That waiver should have requir
Seems that it is still safer than fireworks. (Score:2)
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I could also see potential as a military weapon(s), but I don't want to go there right now.
How very intellectual of you to see the potential use of drones as weapons while the rest of us Neanderthals just have to read about the actual use of drones by the military since the Vietnam war.
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This shouldn't be possible. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like you fence off a large fireworks pit, you shouldn't have crowds collecting anywhere your drone show might have a drone crash.
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Florida dereg. Welcome to Donnville, 'Murica!
-5 Political
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Drones don't always crash straight down. Especially when they suffer a partial damage after collision they can go hundreds of yards off course before they strike the ground.
In the video on X the drown show was over a lake but a couple of the ones that came down seem to have managed to hit the shore.
"Lake Eola" (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait wait wait... Let me get this straight, because I know how we do things up here in WA, but no idea what the fuck they do down in FL.
You have a lake. YOU HAVE A LAKE.
You literally have a protected area which prevents people from walking (unless they're Jesus or some shit?)
And you DIDN'T use this for the show!?
Up here, we do barge based fireworks and light shows, or have protected areas (ex: one sports stadium has a light show where the drones are actually over the other stadium for both a staging area and safety area)
Drone shows require staging areas. So you already have protected space under the drones. WTF where people doing there !?
Re:"Lake Eola" (Score:4, Informative)
https://x.com/MosquitoCoFL/sta... [x.com]
Apparently this is a video of the drone swarm undergoing partial failure. As you can see, they aren't necessarily flying over the water, though the geese certainly seemed agitated by drones hitting the shore.
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This is Florida, where safety regulations are considered "woke bullshit".
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Until some kid gets maimed for life because people like you feel they can externalize the consequences of their stupidity.
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Oh, citation: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/simi-valley-fourth-of-july-fireworks-explosion-cause/1962319/
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And you DIDN'T use this for the show!?
Australia used a lake: When the drones malfunctioned, many 'landed' on the water and sank.
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That's exactly the point. They hurt themselves, NOT people.
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Yes, drones should be flown over exclusion zones. That's been true for airshows, fireworks shows, and everything else where accidents can happen.
This doesn't eliminate all injuries or deaths - after all, if a plane crashes, debris flies everywhere and sometimes it flies into the crowd, but the set backs are set so they're extremely rare events.
Likewise, fireworks have an exclusion zone in case something goes wrong
Drone shows should be similar based on the permit - and fly over them so if a drone falls out o
I'm not saying it's aliens, but (Score:1)
...it's XiPutin!
flying over the crowd? (Score:4, Interesting)
Were these drones flying over people? My drone license is very clear about that, you don't intentionally fly above people.
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They were not flying over people. But not all drones fall straight down in a perfect vertical line when something goes wrong. That said it sounds like your drone license is very clear about what *you* are licensed to do. Just like I have a drivers license that said I'm now allowed to drive a heavy semi-trailer. There are definitely drone licenses for flying over crowds.
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Specifically, the U.S. FAA regulation is 14 CFR Part 107.39 Operations over human beings.
No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being unless—
(a) That human being is directly participating in the operation of the small unmanned aircraft;
(b) That human being is located under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that can provide reasonable protection from a falling small unmanned aircraft; or
(c) The operation meets the requirements of at least one of the operational ca
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Additionally, the FAA can grant a waiver allowing operations over people (or moving vehicles) if they decide that a proposed small UAS operation can safely be conducted. The waiver process for commercial part 107 operators is on the FAA's web site:
https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/part_107_waivers
The Sentinel article doesn't specifically mention whether the drone show was operating under an FAA waiver.
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That is from page 517, paragraph B, clause 2, subclause 1.1 of Project 25.
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Do your parents know you're off your meds?
Safety regs (Score:1)
Where I live, all the drone light shows are above empty fields or the water. It takes a special idiot to put a fleet of drones above a crowd of people.