The drone airshow company Sky Elements has been grounded by the FAA, canceling numerous drone airshows around the country: Orlando drone show mishap grounds major holiday events
Update: Some event organizers have chosen to ground their drone shows, even though they were to be operated by other vendors than Sky Element. Also, the discussion in the industry is an expectation of many new regulations concerning drone shows and safety.
My take: presumably the drone operation has a variety of software monitoring systems already – particularly from Sky Elements, which has done shows with thousands of drones. Something did not work when the system went haywire. Second, presumably there is a human with a kill switch – which if activated would have shut down all drones immediately, causing them to drop to the ground (the injuries were caused by drones that flew sideways at a high rate of speed, leaving the containment box where people on the ground were prohibited). My suspicion is there was a skill switch but the human in charge failed to throw the switch.
Radio controlled aircraft controllers have kill switches. I had to use one once when test flying a very old quad – while in flight, over our FAA FRIA approved RC airfield, well away from people, one of the props lost part of a blade – and the aircraft began to drift sideways and was no longer properly controllable. I hit the kill switch and watch it fall about 50 feet to the ground directly below – this was the safe alternative. The aircraft is repairable but not sure its worth the trouble as it was moderately dated.
