Boy undergoes open heart surgery after being hit by drone at Orlando holiday show

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ORLANDO, Fla. —
The Federal Aviation Administration opened an investigation after multiple drones fell into a crowd during a drone show at Lake Eola on Saturday. Video obtained by WESH 2 News shows drones zipping through the air before several collided and crashed into the crowd. The Orlando Fire Department said one person was injured during the event and sent to a hospital.

Adriana Edgerton said the person injured was her 7-year-old son Alezander. She said her son is undergoing open-heart surgery after being hit in the chest by the drone. Edgerton said that her family was watching the drone show when multiple drones fell from the sky, and one hit her son. "Everyone’s natural instinct was to duck and scatter, and before we realized it, my daughter found my son on the floor unconscious. He had blood coming out of his face," Edgerton said. The boy underwent hours of open-heart surgery Sunday after the drone struck his chest with such force that it damaged one of his heart valves, Edgerton said. “The blade cut his mouth, but there’s an actual imprint of the drone on his chest,” she said.

A spokesperson from the FAA released a statement saying the agency will investigate "after several small drones collided and fell into a crowd during a holiday drone show over Lake Eola in Orlando, Florida." According to the FAA, "Drone arrays and light shows are subject to FAA regulation. Typically, these events require a waiver to the regulation that prohibits operating more than one drone at a time. We thoroughly review each drone show application to make sure the flying public and people on the ground will be safe."

Edgerton said more safety precautions need to be put in place for large-scale events in Orlando. "This should not have happened, and no family should be going through this. We were trying to watch a show and have a good time," said Edgerton. The drone show was organized by Sky Elements, a Texas-based company that performs events nationwide. In a statement, Sky Elements said, “Sky Elements Drones wants to extend our sincere hope for a full and speedy recovery for those impacted at our Lake Eola show.” The company added that it remains committed to upholding the highest safety standards.

https://www.wesh.com/article/mom-speaks-out-after-son-was-hit-by-a-drone-at-orlandos-holiday-show/63258505

[Dennis Donovan]

1. I hope the little boy recovers. :(

The drone shows are spectacular.

I'd hate to see this affect the exhibitions put on by these amazingly coordinated drones.

Here's the story from WESH:

[whopis01]

2. I suspect that someone was operating a GPS jammer

This was not a case of drones just colliding with each other. With a quadcopter-type drone, if there is physical damage, it does not fly far away. It will tumble and fall to the ground.

It is hard to know what the formation was supposed to look like, but it appears to be somewhat uneven and sloppy. Not at all like other shows performed by this same company.

More telling is that you can see a couple that move out of the formation, then recover and fly back to the correct position. That is not what happens if they collide. It looks like controlled flight the entire time. So either they are being commanded to do that, or they are getting bad sensor (GPS) data about their location. I believe it is the latter and when the interference goes away, they recover their location data and move back into position.

The ones falling straight down are likely from collisions in the air caused by drones being out of position, again due to GPS interference.

Drone shows are almost entirely pre-programmed. They are not being commanded live from the ground. Perhaps at a high level (takeoff, go to formation 1, go to formation 2, etc.), but the flight paths are all preset, so it isn't likely that this was an issue with control communication from the ground. So that just leaves bad sensor data as the likely cause.

GPS jammers are cheap and easy to get. The GPS signals are so weak, it is relatively easy to overwhelm them. There are jam-resistant GPS sensors, but they are very expensive and still limited in what they can deal with.

[LisaL]

3. If that is the case, wouldn't what happened to this child

be a serious crime? Assault resulting in a severe injury or something like that?

[Jacson6]

5. There has to be intent or maybe operating equipment while intoxicated.

People get hurt in accidents all the time. If there is intentional harm then that qualifies as battery & assault.

[whopis01]

6. Absolutely.

The FAA and NTSB are investigating the incident. Those drones will each have log data on them. I'm not sure what flight controller they use, but GPS data including several quality of service measurements is pretty standard in flight logs.

If it was someone with a jammer, the tricky part is going to be finding them. You can have a small, handheld, battery operated device. My guess would be someone did this as a prank and that someone else knows about it.

[Jacson6]

4. I can't believe they let people be under the drones during the show.

I hope the company has a $10M insurance policy.

[whopis01]

7. People were not under where the drones were (supposed to be) flying

Some drones flew far away from their intended location.

On Lake Eola, there is a grassy peninsula that sticks out into the lake. That is where the drones were launched from and supposed to be over. In one of the videos you can see a drone fly into the people filming it. They were about 250 feet away from that area.

The top left and bottom right clips are from the video. The bright light in the top of the bottom right video is the drone flying into the crowd. The other pictures are showing the map of the location and streetview where the person was filming from.



Clearly 250 feet was far enough away - but any normal failure on a quadcopter-type drone (prop / motor failure, collision, etc.) would not cause it to fly 250 away before crashing. It would tumble straight down (as many did in the show). This was bad GPS sensor data causing the drones to not know where they were. This is very likely the act of someone with a GPS jammer. They are cheap, small, and easy to get a hold of.