Five out-of-control drones crashed into each other and plunged into the River Thames during a rehearsal for a light show. The night-time rehearsal saw an operator putting a swarm of drones through their paces ahead of the performance in front of the public when disaster struck, a newly-released report said.
Incident details
Several of the UAS Skymagic X245 drones got into trouble during the rehearsal, which was launched from London Eye Pier, according to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). The incident saw "multiple unmanned aircraft destroyed" as the drones crashed into each other during the pre-programmed display rehearsal with five of them plunging into the river at 2.47am on March 23.
"During a night-time rehearsal of a UAS light display over the River Thames, several unmanned aircraft (UAs) within a swarm experienced degraded positional accuracy, while operating in close formation near the London Eye," the AAIB report said. "Two UAs descended out of control early in the flight and, later in the sequence, five additional UAs collided during a programmed transition and fell into the river. No injuries were reported, and the UAs were not recovered."
Possible causes
The operator said that the crash had possibly been caused by several of the drones "reverting to a lower-accuracy positioning mode during the flight, resulting in positional drift within the swarm". Checks made after the flight also found that an antenna, used to help the drones sense their positions in the swarm, "may have been partially obscured," which could also have caused the crashes.
"The operator reported that the RTK antenna height had subsequently been increased with additional checks introduced to ensure an unobstructed signal and a stable RTK fix prior to flight," the report concluded.
