Sydney's big winter light festival added an unscripted spectacle Monday night: at least drones dropping into the harbor. During Monday night's "Star-Bound" drone show over Darling Harbour, dozens of devices suddenly lost position and descended into Cockle Bay and onto nearby wharves, startling onlookers but, according to operators, staying within safety zones, the BBC reports. Skymagic, the firm running the display of up to 1,000 drones, said an "unforeseen change in the radio frequency environment" after takeoff triggered the machines' fail-safe landing mode.
A worker on the waterfront told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that some of the drones hit the marina with a loud crack. "Everything seemed normal and then very shortly after that first image was displayed, on the southern side of Cockle Bay you started seeing drones dropping in the water and then from there it was a cascading failure of the drones," he says. The drone, he says, "did look like they were well and truly outside their flying zones. They're not meant to fly over anyone or even close to anyone and it fell within meters of people I was with."
Vivid Sydney, which introduced drone shows to its program this year, has canceled several upcoming performances while Skymagic and government agencies investigate. Organizers apologized for the disruption and said any decision on the remaining 22 planned shows will follow a full assessment. Launched in 2009, the three-week festival draws large crowds to installations around Sydney Harbour, including projections on the Opera House sails. The harbor worker tells the ABC that after the "catastrophic failure," organizers should consider sticking to fireworks in future. "Drones can go wrong, but for them to severely go haywire … was a big concern," he says.
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