{"id":18982,"date":"2026-05-26T21:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T21:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/18982\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T21:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T21:12:08","slug":"how-did-almost-90-drones-crash-during-sydneys-vivid-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/18982\/","title":{"rendered":"How did almost 90 drones crash during Sydney’s Vivid festival?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The company behind the drone shows at Vivid Sydney festival says spectators were not at risk when almost 90 unmanned aircraft fell from the sky during a display on Monday night.<\/p>\n

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has launched an investigation into the mishap, which UK company SkyMagic blamed on radio interference.<\/p>\n

Of the 1,000 twinkling drones that swarmed above Darling Harbour, 83 splashed into Cockle Bay.<\/p>\n

An effort is underway to fish the drones out of the harbour to minimise pollution from their lithium-ion batteries.<\/p>\n

Six others landed on boardwalks and a bridge, but SkyMagic’s head of operations and production, Dyfan Rhys, said none of the errant vehicles escaped the exclusion zone.<\/p>\n

“It’s really important to hammer home that there were no safety concerns at that show,” Mr Rhys said.<\/p>\n

The festival immediately grounded displays planned for Tuesday and Wednesday, but has not yet decided the fate of Sunday’s show.<\/p>\n

Destination NSW CEO Karen Jones said whether it goes ahead would depend on the outcome of a safety assessment.<\/p>\n

How common are drone show mishaps?<\/p>\n

As drone shows take off in popularity, more accidents are inevitable.<\/p>\n

In 2023, more than 400 drones plunged into Melbourne’s Victoria Harbour at Docklands.<\/p>\n

An ATSB investigation found the pilot failed to notice the wind was too strong for the aircraft.<\/p>\n

In 2024, a rogue drone reportedly struck a boy in the face during a show that went awry in the US state of Florida.<\/p>\n

Footage published by Vietnamese media shows drones falling into a crowd of onlookers in Ho Chi Minh City last year.<\/p>\n

\"Drone<\/p>\n

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has launched an investigation into the incident. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

How do drone shows work?<\/p>\n

Nigel Brown is the CEO of the WA-based company Drone Sky Shows.<\/p>\n

Mr Brown said each drone was programmed with a flight path so that it knew where to fly as part of the spectacle.<\/p>\n

He said the aircraft were monitored from a master computer by a pilot who could take control in the event of failure.<\/p>\n

Mr Brown said some drones were designed to carry out the entire show without a signal.<\/p>\n

He said drone shows were generally confined to a “geo fence” to keep them away from the audience below.<\/p>\n

“If a drone hits that imaginary wall, then it tries to return to home, and if it can’t for some reason, then the software should turn the engines off so that it virtually, relatively falls vertically,” he said.<\/p>\n

How does the weather affect drone shows?<\/p>\n

While Sunday’s show was cancelled because of the rain, there is so far no suggestion that the weather played a part in Monday’s mishap.<\/p>\n

\"Mr<\/p>\n

Nigel Brown says some drones can handle rain and stronger winds better than others. (ABC News: Supplied\/Nigel Brown)<\/p>\n

Mr Brown said the threat posed to drones by rain depended on the generation of device used. Some models could sustain rain, but the electronics of other types could not.<\/p>\n

Wind was the more pressing concern. The descent of drones into Victoria Harbour in Melbourne was linked to winds that exceeded their rating.<\/p>\n

But as Mr Brown explained, strong winds could prevent the drone from carrying out its routine due to the aircraft’s power limitations.<\/p>\n

He said the maximum headwind his drones could safely withstand was 8 metres per second, or 29 km\/h.<\/p>\n

“That’s where the limitation of wind comes into play because a small little drone just can’t fly that fast,” he said.How much would Monday’s malfunction have cost?<\/p>\n

The company would not disclose the cost of the drones lost, other than to say they were expensive.<\/p>\n

Mr Brown, from Drone Sky Shows, said drones used in displays could cost between $1,500 and $2,400 each.<\/p>\n

Multiply the cost by about 80, and Monday’s malfunction seems significant.<\/p>\n

Mr Brown said drones that end up in the water were unable to fly again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company behind the drone shows at Vivid Sydney festival says spectators were not at risk when almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,18590,21,18580,15909,18046,1796,18049,18581,18583,18586,18587,18589,18048,247,18582,18045,18050,5653,15907,18051,5654,18584,18585,18588],"class_list":["post-18982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australian-transport-safety-bureau","tag-austrlia","tag-drone-failure","tag-drone-show","tag-drone-show-error","tag-drones","tag-drones-fall","tag-drones-fall-into-water","tag-drones-falling-from-the-sky","tag-explained","tag-fall-from-the-sky","tag-skymagic","tag-star-bound-vivid-drone-show","tag-sydney","tag-sydney-vivid-drone-show-failure","tag-sydney-vivid-drone-show-malfunction","tag-technical-difficulties-drone-show","tag-vivid","tag-vivid-drone-show","tag-vivid-drone-show-cancelled","tag-vivid-festival","tag-what-happened-at-vivid","tag-why-did-the-drones-fail","tag-why-is-the-drone-show-cancelled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}