{"id":401089,"date":"2026-09-16T02:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401089\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T02:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:50:08","slug":"pilot-error-caused-lake-eola-drone-show-crash-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401089\/","title":{"rendered":"Pilot error caused Lake Eola drone show crash, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A crash during a 2024 holiday drone show at Lake Eola that left a child seriously injured<\/a> was the fault of pilot error, which sent some of the 500 small aircraft crashing into each other, falling to the ground and even \u201cstreaking towards the audience,\u201d according to a newly released report from federal officials.<\/p>\n

Sky Elements, a Texas-based drone show company, hosted the event on Dec. 21, 2024 in downtown Orlando. Soon after the drones were launched above Lake Eola, some collided and fell. A 7-year-old boy was injured, needed surgery and spent that Christmas in the hospital, his parents said on social media at the time.<\/p>\n

The report said the child was hit in the face and chest.<\/p>\n

The crash was the result of errors made by the drones\u2019 remote pilot, and a lack of \u201csupervisory oversight\u201d that meant no one noticed the problems that later led to the holiday show accident, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its report released Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Orlando mishap, which alarmed spectators, led to the cancellation of New Year\u2019s Eve drone shows that year nationwide, including ones in Central Park in New York City and in Dallas, Texas. Universal Orlando, who also contracted with the company, canceled the use of drones during its end-of-night show, \u201cUniversal CineSational,\u201d later that week.<\/p>\n

The company returned to staging shows about six months later, however.<\/p>\n

The drone pilot, a man who said he had 15 to 20 years of experience with drones and had already participated in about 300 similar shows, is no longer employed by Sky Elements, the company has said, and it has since added new safety procedures to its shows.<\/p>\n

At least 47 drones were involved in the crashes at Lake Eola. Five were never recovered, apparently because they crashed into the water, the NTSB said.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s drones weighed about 2.3 pounds each and traveled up to 37 miles per hour. The drones were designed to have their flight paths programed precisely as they are not equipped with \u201ccollision avoidance technologies,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The main problem that the drones\u2019 pilot failed to program the aircraft to meet over the show\u2019s intended center position, causing its computer system to assign aircraft to the wrong flight paths. This eventually resulted in drones colliding during their initial liftoff and a loss of control.<\/p>\n

This error was compounded when two of the drones had different programmed center positions than the rest. Though they didn\u2019t seem to be working properly prior to the show, they were still launched, the report said. Also, further programming errors meant the drone show was closer to the holiday crowds than planned.<\/p>\n

The accident occurred during \u201cthe initial phase\u201d of the light show when \u201cmultiple\u201d drones \u201cfailed to achieve proper spatial separation, resulting in midair collisions and subsequent loss of control,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The show began about 6:30 p.m. that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the collisions occurred, numerous aircraft could be seen falling from the sky and impacting the ground. One aircraft could be seen streaking towards the audience,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n

At the time of the accident, the company did not have policies in place that required management or another pilot to verify the drones were set up correctly before a light show began, the agency found.<\/p>\n

Sky Elements now requires a minimum of two certified drone pilots for its shows, designated as pilot and co-pilot, with defined roles and responsibilities. There is also now a paper checklist to be completed and signed by both pilots before the shows, the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A crash during a 2024 holiday drone show at Lake Eola that left a child seriously injured was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-401089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401089","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=401089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}