Footage has emerged of drones falling from the sky and into Sydney Harbour during this year’s Vivid festival.
The drones were part of a light show in Circular Quay bout 7.30pm on Monday night, during which a malfunction resulted in 89 drones crashing.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Dozens of drones plunge from the sky at Sydney light show
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Titled Star-Bound, the show was supposed to featured drones assembling in the formation of the Vivid logo, the Milky Way Galaxy and seashells.
But instead, event organisers SkyMagic told 7NEWS.com.au an “unforeseen change in the radio frequency environment” during take-off caused the issue.
“This anomaly caused a number of drones in the fleet to enact failsafe landing procedures in response to compromised positional accuracy,” SkyMagic said.
“The pilot team encountering the issue immediately performed a stop command, rendering the fleet stationary in the air, enabling time to safely assess the issue.
“The condition that was experienced was momentary, meaning that not all vehicles were affected however the system failsafes are very fast to react to an environmental problem, meaning that some failsafe triggers occurred.”
SkyMagic confirmed none of the drones had escaped a “safety boundary” which is set up to separate the aircraft from the public.
However, some of the drones which had malfunctioned “encountered the geofence boundary and shut down to preserve the safety zone resulting in them falling into the water”.
The radio frequency issue was not encountered or discovered during pre-flight checks, site visits or while rehearsing the performance, SkyMagic said.
Vivid Sydney said the issue caused the 9.30pm show to be cancelled, as well as shows on Tuesday and Wednesday, to allow for a “full assessment”.
“We apologise for the disappointment and inconvenience caused to attendees,” Vivid said.
“The specialist operators identified a technical issue and made the decision to safely discontinue the show in line with standard safety protocols.
“Public safety is always the number one priority and a full assessment is now underway with the specialist operators and relevant government agencies advising on next steps.”
