Child injured when several drones fall from sky during show

ORLANDO, Fla. — A 7-year-old child was severely injured and needed emergency surgery after a drone show went awry sending the aircraft into the crowd.

The show, which was scheduled to run for about 15 minutes, started ok, but a few minutes in, there was an issue. The Federal Aviation Administration said several drones hit each other and moved off course before they fell into the crowd.

Adriana Edgerton said her son was hit by one of the drones that collided during the event at Lake Eola on Saturday. She said the drone hit him in the chest and also cut his face.

“My daughter found my son on the floor unconscious, blood coming from his face,” she told WFTV. She said her son’s heart kept stopping and he stopped breathing as emergency crews worked on him.

Edgerton told WFTV that her son had to undergo open-heart surgery on Sunday.

The FAA is investigating what happened. The federal agency regulates drone shows and requires a waiver to be filed if more than one drone is operated at a time.

The FAA said it looks at the drone software, procedures in case of failure, how they are Geofenced, if the operator has enough people to run it and where the drones are flying, making sure they’re a safe distance from a crowd.

The show was put on by Sky Elements Drones out of Texas which said in a statement that it is working with the FAA and Orlando city leaders to determine the cause of the crash, WFTV reported.

“It gets a little more complicated with what they’re doing because they have to be able to operate hundreds of drones at once. Now, no one is technically controlling the drone but there is a controller. Moving the drone around is all automated and run by computers,” Paul Charbonnet said. He is a Chief Drone Pilot and owner of another drone company, Atmosphere Drones.

He said that while it is all automated, a show can be paused, restarted or aborted if there is a problem, Charbonnet told WFTV.

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