{"id":401017,"date":"2026-09-16T01:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401017\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T01:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:12:11","slug":"just-released-federal-report-reveals-what-caused-orlando-holiday-drone-show-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401017\/","title":{"rendered":"Just released: Federal report reveals what caused Orlando holiday drone show disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Nearly two years after a holiday drone show in Orlando left a young boy seriously injured, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its report exposing what exactly happened.<\/p>\n

The incident happened<\/a> on Dec. 21, 2024, during the first of two planned drone shows where 500 drones were to be flown in a performance area almost entirely over Lake Eola.<\/p>\n

Documents obtained by News 6 at the time revealed the drones were supposed to fly above Lake Eola at a safe distance away from crowds.<\/p>\n

However, video shared at the time reveals that drones began crashing into each other before falling to the ground.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: Child injured after drones fall from sky at downtown Orlando holiday event]<\/p>\n

A 7-year-old boy was reportedly hit in the abdomen by one of the drones needed emergency surgery after doctors told his family the drone shocked his heart.<\/p>\n

WHAT THE NTSB REPORT REVEALS<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the NTSB released its full report, which notes there were 500 drones planned for the light show, which were supposed to be spaced out from one another.<\/p>\n

However, investigators noted that two of the drones had different show center positions than the others, and the show flight position was off by around 59 feet \u2014 putting the show much closer to the audience.<\/p>\n

As a result, drones began colliding during their flight paths and falling down over the audience, the report states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe combined errors resulted in a reduced safety area that was outside the company\u2019s standards,\u201d the report reads.<\/p>\n

Investigators also found the operator had no formal requirement for an independent pre-launch check of critical settings\u2014allowing the configuration errors to go undetected.<\/p>\n

LAWSUIT FILED OVER DRONE DISASTER<\/p>\n

The mother of the injured 7-year-old filed a lawsuit against the city of Orlando and several companies<\/a> involved in the incident after it happened. The firms named in that lawsuit are as follows:<\/p>\n

Sky Elements, LLC<\/p>\n

Uvify, Inc.<\/p>\n

SPH Engineering<\/p>\n

The lawsuit accused each of these parties of negligence, further stating that city officials should have known the show involved high-risk \u201caerial equipment\u201d and that the drones could pose a risk to the public.<\/p>\n

According to the original suit, Uvify \u2013 the drone manufacturer \u2013 failed to design the drones in \u201csuch a manner that the Subject Drone would not suddenly and unexpectedly crash into\u201d the boy.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, SPH Engineering is the developer of the drone\u2019s software.<\/p>\n

A proposed settlement between the mother, Sky Elements and the city of Orlando was filed earlier this month.<\/p>\n

To read the entire lawsuit, see below:<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Nearly two years after a holiday drone show in Orlando left a young boy seriously…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1107,28,1186,1335,139,141,140,4443],"class_list":["post-401017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-courts","tag-florida","tag-holidays","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}