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Vivid Sydney has axed its remaining drone shows after almost 90 drones fell from the sky during a display last week.
Fireworks will replace the “Star-Bound” drone displays in Darling Harbour for the remainder of the festival, organisers have confirmed, after a technical fault caused a cascading failure in last Monday’s show that resulted in 89 drones crashing into the water.
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“Fireworks displays will now complement the Laser Lightfall experience in Darling Harbour at the times previously scheduled for drone shows, adding another layer of spectacle to Vivid Sydney’s harbour celebrations,” Vivid organisers said in a statement.
“We understand this will be disappointing for audiences and appreciate the public’s understanding. Public safety remains the absolute priority and all decisions have been guided by expert technical and regulatory advice.”
Drones are being retrieved from the waters of Darling Harbour, with operator Skymagic saying it is working with authorities to determine what happened.
“Early indications show there was no foul play present, but we are still investigating all possibilities,” said Dyfan Rhys, Skymagic’s head of operations and production.
In a statement last week, the company said the issue was caused by “an unforeseen change in the radio frequency environment occurring after take-off”.
“This anomaly caused a number of drones in the fleet to enact failsafe landing procedures in response to compromised positional accuracy,” the firm said.
“No vehicle escaped the safety boundary of the show parameters and the reaction of the pilots and crew were timely and appropriate in accordance with our operations manual and processes.”
One witness told the ABC last week he had seen “cascading failures” in the drone swarm shortly after the show began at 7:30pm.
“The sound of them crashing on the wharf was considerable even from probably 10 to 15 or 20 metres away; you could hear them physically crash and smash onto the cement marina,” he said.
“They did look like they were well and truly outside their flying zones. They’re not meant to fly over anyone or even close to anyone and it fell within metres of people I was with.”
The Vivid incident follows another drone show mishap in Melbourne three years ago, in which 427 drones dramatically plummeted into the Yarra River before a Matildas soccer match against France.
In its final report released last year, the ATSB found strong winds had caused the malfunction, and that the pilot in command was not aware that the wind speed affecting the drones could be viewed on the computer software.
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