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Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Malfunctioning drones rain fireballs on fleeing crowd
AV Magazine: A pyrodrone show went disastrously wrong when spectators were showered with fireballs.
The incident, which took place in Liuyang, China, saw people flee for cover in panic as sparks rained down.
6 comments:
Josh Hillers
said...
Incidents such as these make me question what level of safety standard we ought to accept whenever anything in suspended or flying above us at any point in time and if those who were responsible for the effects shown in this video and accident fully account for these possibilities. Beginning with the standards, if there are to be fireworks or any kind of pyrotechnics involved in a drone show, why would there be people underneath the show itself? Obviously this adds to the immersion and makes for a great experience, but a single drone malfunctioning (as opposed to a whole set) poses a health risk that ought to be taken seriously. Second, during the programming and use of these drones, did they ever consider if they would need to add in a homing program to return the drones to a safe spot if something like this were to occur? It seems that there may have been a mass malfunction making this impossible even if the possibility were to be accounted for, but even so, if that has a chance of happening, why engage in that risk in the first place when there are so many people and so many drones. If anything, this serves as an accident to seriously think about and evaluate the safety and procedural rules for drone shows.
Well, the images of this situation look very apocalyptic. These types of incidents always remind me of the Spiderman musical, when Spiderman fell to the ground from a fly system. It seems that no matter how far safety technology progresses, people will always find a way to have something go horrifically wrong. I think this demonstrates how much this industry is liable to user error, as well as how much of a responsibility technicians have to make sure audiences are safe. This article is specifically about drone technology, and mentions several other incidents where drones have harmed audience members. I think that drones could grow to become a great asset in live entertainment, but perhaps should be investigated and tested more to become safer and less unpredictable. I especially think that, for now, drones and pyrotechnics should probably be kept separate until drones are engineered to be safer than they are today.
This is absolutely unacceptable and should never be a possibility; no object should ever land on audience members. The article stated that no one was hurt, but if people walked out of the event with first- or second-degree burns or bruises, then the show clearly did not go as intended. Those responsible need to thoroughly assess what happened, determine who is accountable, and address the issue appropriately.The real question I have is: how was this ever considered acceptable? Where was the risk analysis? Who approved the idea of having drones shoot off fireworks directly above the audience? Did no one in the room ask what would happen if something went wrong? Because if it does, the drones fall and directly beneath them are people. The risk here far outweighs the effect. Watching the video left me stunned and reaffirmed my belief that a thorough risk assessment must always be conducted when operating anything above an audience’s heads.
This incident, as well as other recent drone related accidents, raise questions about the use of drones in entertainment. Drones are becoming more and more common, and the industry needs to decide how they should be treated in order to avoid future accidents. For example, when we rig, we have typical design factors that we use for given situations. To my knowledge, there isn’t any rule similar to this that is applicable to drones. I’m not an expert, but I don’t even really know if a drone could be rated like this – maybe by its lifting capacity. The different applications for drones is also getting called into question by this article. On paper, a pyrodrone show kind of sounds like an accident waiting to happen. This particular accident could have ended a lot worse than it did, and hopefully the recent string of drone accidents will spur the industry to putting more regulations on drones.
These events are definitely important to spread the word about, as it seems that there needs to be a push for change in how we handle drones. People could and seem to already have been seriously hurt by these drone shows going wrong and drones malfunctioning. The last thing we want is for something that is supposed to be entertaining to cause someone to lose a life or suffer a life-changing injury. I think we as an industry should start to look more into how to make these drone shows safer and how to ensure that if the drones do malfunction, there is an emergency measure to keep the audience safe. I would say look into how to stop the malfunctions, but if you work with tech, you know that is completely impossible. Technology likes to mess up whenever it wants; you can’t really control it, and it won’t follow a plan or safety policies. However, we can control our response to it, and that is what is vital during emergencies such as these. Safety should always be the number one priority when it comes to this industry and thus the way we handle this issue should reflect that.
This article reminds me of that scene from the latest Hunger Games movie where drones were used to deliver contestants items but instead were so violent when they entered the dome they crashed into walls and decked people out. I was wondering what precautions were in place for drone shows, especially the ones holding fireworks, but I guess from this article I’m going to assume there just are none. People getting hit by drones is sad and frustrating because it’s a tragedy that stems from some form of live entertainment (except on the occasion when it’s your neighbor or sibling flying a small one into your face.) I think because drone accidents are common enough in the entertainment sphere, that drone shows should prioritize putting the show at certain distances away and not overhead the audience. Furthermore, until we figure out how to not have drones go haywire maybe we should just stop using them. I see their environmental improvements to firework shows but if they’re going to rain fire showers onto audiences the pay off is not enough.
6 comments:
Incidents such as these make me question what level of safety standard we ought to accept whenever anything in suspended or flying above us at any point in time and if those who were responsible for the effects shown in this video and accident fully account for these possibilities. Beginning with the standards, if there are to be fireworks or any kind of pyrotechnics involved in a drone show, why would there be people underneath the show itself? Obviously this adds to the immersion and makes for a great experience, but a single drone malfunctioning (as opposed to a whole set) poses a health risk that ought to be taken seriously. Second, during the programming and use of these drones, did they ever consider if they would need to add in a homing program to return the drones to a safe spot if something like this were to occur? It seems that there may have been a mass malfunction making this impossible even if the possibility were to be accounted for, but even so, if that has a chance of happening, why engage in that risk in the first place when there are so many people and so many drones. If anything, this serves as an accident to seriously think about and evaluate the safety and procedural rules for drone shows.
Well, the images of this situation look very apocalyptic. These types of incidents always remind me of the Spiderman musical, when Spiderman fell to the ground from a fly system. It seems that no matter how far safety technology progresses, people will always find a way to have something go horrifically wrong. I think this demonstrates how much this industry is liable to user error, as well as how much of a responsibility technicians have to make sure audiences are safe. This article is specifically about drone technology, and mentions several other incidents where drones have harmed audience members. I think that drones could grow to become a great asset in live entertainment, but perhaps should be investigated and tested more to become safer and less unpredictable. I especially think that, for now, drones and pyrotechnics should probably be kept separate until drones are engineered to be safer than they are today.
This is absolutely unacceptable and should never be a possibility; no object should ever land on audience members. The article stated that no one was hurt, but if people walked out of the event with first- or second-degree burns or bruises, then the show clearly did not go as intended. Those responsible need to thoroughly assess what happened, determine who is accountable, and address the issue appropriately.The real question I have is: how was this ever considered acceptable? Where was the risk analysis? Who approved the idea of having drones shoot off fireworks directly above the audience? Did no one in the room ask what would happen if something went wrong? Because if it does, the drones fall and directly beneath them are people. The risk here far outweighs the effect. Watching the video left me stunned and reaffirmed my belief that a thorough risk assessment must always be conducted when operating anything above an audience’s heads.
This incident, as well as other recent drone related accidents, raise questions about the use of drones in entertainment. Drones are becoming more and more common, and the industry needs to decide how they should be treated in order to avoid future accidents. For example, when we rig, we have typical design factors that we use for given situations. To my knowledge, there isn’t any rule similar to this that is applicable to drones. I’m not an expert, but I don’t even really know if a drone could be rated like this – maybe by its lifting capacity. The different applications for drones is also getting called into question by this article. On paper, a pyrodrone show kind of sounds like an accident waiting to happen. This particular accident could have ended a lot worse than it did, and hopefully the recent string of drone accidents will spur the industry to putting more regulations on drones.
These events are definitely important to spread the word about, as it seems that there needs to be a push for change in how we handle drones. People could and seem to already have been seriously hurt by these drone shows going wrong and drones malfunctioning. The last thing we want is for something that is supposed to be entertaining to cause someone to lose a life or suffer a life-changing injury. I think we as an industry should start to look more into how to make these drone shows safer and how to ensure that if the drones do malfunction, there is an emergency measure to keep the audience safe. I would say look into how to stop the malfunctions, but if you work with tech, you know that is completely impossible. Technology likes to mess up whenever it wants; you can’t really control it, and it won’t follow a plan or safety policies. However, we can control our response to it, and that is what is vital during emergencies such as these. Safety should always be the number one priority when it comes to this industry and thus the way we handle this issue should reflect that.
This article reminds me of that scene from the latest Hunger Games movie where drones were used to deliver contestants items but instead were so violent when they entered the dome they crashed into walls and decked people out. I was wondering what precautions were in place for drone shows, especially the ones holding fireworks, but I guess from this article I’m going to assume there just are none. People getting hit by drones is sad and frustrating because it’s a tragedy that stems from some form of live entertainment (except on the occasion when it’s your neighbor or sibling flying a small one into your face.) I think because drone accidents are common enough in the entertainment sphere, that drone shows should prioritize putting the show at certain distances away and not overhead the audience. Furthermore, until we figure out how to not have drones go haywire maybe we should just stop using them. I see their environmental improvements to firework shows but if they’re going to rain fire showers onto audiences the pay off is not enough.
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