Strong winds have been blamed for more than 400 drones falling from the sky into Melbourne’s Yarra River during a light show celebrating the Matildas before the Women’s World Cup.
The light show, using 500 Damoda drones, was scheduled for the evening of 14 July 2023 over the river in Docklands, in Melbourne’s CBD.
The drones, part of a show celebrating Australia’s women’s football team, launched at 6.30pm. Less than two minutes later many began showing critical errors indicating an autopilot failure, according to an Australian Transport Safety Bureau report into the incident, released this week.
Shortly after, pilots lost connection to the drones and they began colliding with each other, the ATSB chief commissioner, Angus Mitchell, noted in the report.
The remote pilot attempted to return the drones to the launch site individually, but 427 of the 500 drones were lost, the majority falling into the Yarra.
Divers were sent in to recover them, but were only able to retrieve 236 out of the 427 that entered the water, with 191 remaining unrecovered.
The ATSB’s investigation found that the wind conditions at the time exceeded the drones’ capacity shortly after launch, triggering the collisions and errors.
“The wind limit exceedance was not identified by the [remote pilot] as they were unaware that the wind speed affecting the aircraft was displayed on the [ground control station] computer screen,” Mitchell said.
The report identified the operator did not have a system to ensure all of its pilots could use the ground control station’s software features, increasing the risk of pilots failing to identify potential issues in the lead-up to the show.
It also found the software did not have the functionality to actively alert a pilot to wind speed exceedances. Damoda has advised the ATSB it is considering an update to enable those alerts.
“This incident demonstrates the importance of drone pilots being familiar with all functionality and data provided by relevant ground control software,” Mitchell said.
“It also shows the impact human factors can have on drone operations, and how they should be actively considered and managed.”
