A big drone light show in China ended with some drones descending into the audience. The descents seemed controlled, but one cannot imagine why they would be intentional.
Fairly recently we wrote about a drone light show where some of the drones fell from the sky. On July 16, during another big drone light show in China, some of the drones descended into the crowd, where they were immediately grabbed by onlookers.
It is a strange story to say the least.
Drone light show for beer festival
The incident occurred during a major beer festival in China involving Tsingtao, one of the country’s largest breweries. We lived in China (well, not all from DroneDJ staff, but I did), and I can confirm for the record that Tsingtao makes a really good beer.
But that’s not what we’re here for. The impetus for this story was a post by @Kanzhaji, who runs a website on Chinese drone news and publications.
@Kanzhaji posted an article about the incident on Twitter, with a link to a more comprehensive article on their website. Here is the Tweet:
The image shows people attempting to grab drones as they descend, during a light show of 1,000 drones. The Tweet also refers to his position on the subject.
What didn’t go well?
With the help of Google Translate, we were able to extract the following from his post. We’ve fixed a few of the errors associated with Google translating, but here’s roughly what it says:
During the opening ceremony of the Tsingtao Beer Festival on the evening of the 16th, 1,000 drones were used for a light training performance. However, some of the performance drones accidentally fell, causing looting of tourists, and some drones injured some tourists.
We cannot embed video for his post, but we encourage you to click on his site and watch it here. Whatever happened, it’s pretty weird.
Whaaaaat?
So it was quite strange. But then @Kanzhaji posted an update. Organizers told him it was on purpose:
Beer City is currently responding: It has been retracted, and it is not considered a mistake.
Wait a minute. The organizers of a drone light show deliberately lower drones in a crowd, with whirring rotors? We can’t see it.
Yeah, it would be cool if some people wanted keepsakes. But the potential for injury (and he said some people have been injured) has huge liability implications. Yes, the drones used in these shows are often lightweight, but they still spin props that could cut your fingers. Why would anyone risk this?
Quite simply, they wouldn’t. And what would someone use one of these drones for? These drone light shows are controlled by central systems with specialized software, not by handheld controllers. The drones would therefore be useless, except as a souvenir, for those who picked them up.
Automatic landing?
The descents seem pretty controlled – not the kind of savage failure you’ll see in a moment. So they seem, maybe, to be auto-landing. Could they just be low in power and programmed for this action?
Perhaps. But you would think that the software would include a return to home function, to avoid the risk of them coming into contact with people.
Previous drone light show failed
Remember when we said that a light show less than a month ago had a problem? It was even more dramatic, and here is:
DroneDJ’s point of view
This is the second incident in less than a month where drones have unexpectedly fallen in China during a drone light show. These shows take place frequently, especially in China.
In the video above it is clear that something has happened very wrong. We’re only speculating, but one has to wonder, given the growth in drone countermeasures technology, if anyone has deliberately played with the light show by interfering with the link of command and control. It’s certainly not impossible, and you can imagine a scenario where a competitor (especially if the show was put on by a drone company), might think he could win by causing a failure.
The truth is, your guess is as good as ours. But clearly, what happened here was quite unusual.
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