Approximately 100 Drones Crash into the Water During a Drone Show in Avustralya: How Do Emergency Systems Work?

A massive drone air show held at Darling Limanı in Sidney, Avustralya, was nearly turning into a disaster due to an unexpected technical failure. In the middle of the choreographed show consisting of Bin drones, hundreds of drones suddenly broke formation and began to fall uncontrollably. During the incident, approximately 90 drones crashed into the waters of the port and eight of them slammed into a wooden walkway. By chance, the falling drones did not hit any spectators at the scene, and no casualties or injuries were reported. However, this technological feast adorning the sky revealed how great the risks of technical failures in drones can be.

The drones involved in the incident were produced by the British technology company SkyMagic, and each was about half a meter in length and weighed nearly two kilograms. A device of this size and weight falling from a high altitude onto a person has the potential to cause serious and even fatal injuries. According to the company's statement, the main cause of this massive formation disruption was that the drones had suddenly lost their radio signal. Although officials have not yet clarified whether the signal interruption was a deliberate cyberattack or a hacking attempt, preliminary examinations indicate that this is a technical communication issue rather than a likely cyber incident. The SkyMagic team has launched a comprehensive investigation into the incident to determine why the communication was severed.

Drone shows have strict emergency protocols pre-designed against such communication losses and other potential failures. In a large show with Bin drones, different generations of drones are usually used simultaneously; while some receive uninterrupted instructions from a central computer during flight, others store the entire flight plan and return route in their internal memory. Additionally, to ensure the safety of the spectators, an invisible 'virtual fence' is created around the drones, thereby preventing the devices from approaching crowded areas. If the signal to a drone is cut or the device loses its connection to the control unit, the safety algorithm kicks in and primarily attempts to return the device to a safe landing zone.

If returning to a safe landing zone is not possible or the device hits the virtual fence, the emergency software makes a much more radical decision and completely shuts down the drone's motors. As a result of the motors shutting down, the drone loses its ability to glide and falls directly downwards due to gravity. This mechanism is considered an applicable safety measure only in show areas where drones are isolated from spectators and bounded by a virtual fence. In the incident in Sidney, when the drones lost connection, their motors stopped, and they fell into the water and empty spaces within the safety zone as programmed. Thanks to this, although hundreds of devices were scrapped, the system was successfully disabled without endangering people's lives.

On the other hand, although no harm came to people, the dozens of drones that fell into the port's waters have created a serious environmental problem because the lithium-ion batteries contained in these devices hold highly toxic and polluting substances that could lead to water pollution. To prevent environmental devastation, police divers have managed to remove all drones from the depths of the water without causing pollution by scanning the bottom of the port inch by inch. Although such emergency motor shutdown systems work on these show-purpose devices, the technology world must develop much smarter solutions for cargo drones delivering packages or the air taxis of the future. For this reason, commercial drones, which will serve unmanned and safely, are being designed to analyze their surroundings in the event of a possible failure and try to find the safest area to land slowly, rather than crashing to the ground with AI-supported systems.