A hexacopter carrying a camera crashed into the grandstand at Virginia Motorsports Park at The Great Bull Run in Dinwiddie, Virginia on Saturday. The event promised to bring “the Spanish tradition of the running of the bulls to the United States!”
The aircraft did not, as this post originally said, belong to WTVR. “In fact, due to liability concerns, WTVR does not use UAS in any of its news or broadcast coverage,” WTVR General Manager Stephen P. Hayes writes in an email to Poynter.
In The Washington Post, Martin Weil says the mishap “might be described as the dramatic encounter between a controversial piece of hardware and a controversial spectacle.”
Four or five people were treated for minor injuries, Weil reports. In the video below, you can see the drone dance gaily above the crowd until it plummets.
“It just hit a dude in the face!” one of the commentators announces.
Source: Poynter
It was just a matter of waiting before this would happen. This also proves that if one engine fails on even a hectacopter, you can not control it any longer. It seems that the US ruling is not yet good enough for safe flying. Flying with octocopters over public or within a range of 100 meters of public should be forbidden. Just watch this movie piece. It also shows the non professional attitude of the operators of this craft. A well educated operator would not fly over or near public as he/she knows the shortcomings of their aircraft. Octocopoters are no more than playthings which should not be used professionally.
Octocopters, as other multicopters, are not toys and could defently be used professionally, as they already are by alot of people. Its the same as all aircrafts, they can fail, so the pilot need to consider that, by not flying right over people, but 100 meters away from public would be stupid. Multicopters are great for filming events, as long as the pilot holds a safe distance from people, i do think the multicopter needs an inspection before flying near anybody tho. And you can have a controlled crash with a hexacopter, if you got enought alltitude, but a octocopter would be even more safe for that.