Why The Enrique Iglesias Drone Stunt Was Utterly Stupid?
You are already probably sick of posts about the Enrique Iglesias drone stunt that went sour at his concert in Tijuana, Mexico. Besides the fact that sensationalist media titled the story “Drone Attack” to build on the wide spread fear mongering that is going on about our hobby, most of the news reports miss the real lesson to be learned here. They fail to point out why it is really really stupid and unnecessary – I will explain why here in a minute – to pull a stunt like this.
The stunt as it happened during the show. Source: CNN/AP.
I obviously do not wish anyone to suffer these kinds of relatively serious injuries, but it is outraging to see such an irresponsible act done on a regular basis during a concert tour. And no, I don’t mean that it is harming the reputation of our hobby. Of course that is the case, but that is not the most important problem with what happened.
Why It Was Irresponsible?
The main problem is the irresponsible habit of flying a DJI Inspire 1 quadcopter over the concert crowd. The Inspire 1 is great quadcopter – I own one myself and love it -, but it’s a semi hobby grade multirotor. A multirotor that has 4 props, so if one fails, there is zero redundancy and it can gan go tits up, right into the middle of the crowd. I am not saying that doing this would have been totally fine with a hexacopter or an octo, but at least the part of flying over a crowd would have been protected with a bit of redundancy. So the fact that only Enrique himself got his fingers gashed is actually a very fortunate event compared to what could have happened. There is a reason why propellers are called “blades”. And yes, it probably would not help Enrique’s career either if he received those gashes in his face. But he is a “professional” performer, he had to consider the hazards and thought that the gain outweighs the risk. But what about his tour organizers? Didn’t they have a health and safety advisor to consider if this is a sane thing to do?
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Why It Was Unnecessary?
I am also personally involved in operating a professional aerial filming business that caters to international film productions. Yes, a professional aerial rig can be used as a flying “steadycam” which makes sense in certain scenarios. Imagine a car chasing scene in a movie where obviously no one on feet can just move fast enough. The natural sweet spot where multirotor rigs provide unmatched advantage is between 120 meters (below which manned helicopters are in most cases useless) and 15 meters (which is how high a crane or jib can reach). And that is exactly the point. Why would you use a quadcopter with blades spinning at over 10K RPM if you could safely use one of these:
Why He Acted Irresponsibly Himself?
If you check out the video below (if you haven’t seen it yet), you can see that Mr. Iglesias keeps on grabbing the Inspire 1 by the gimbal. That and covering up the bottom sonars and camera is best effort if you would like to mess up the flight positioning system because I can only hope that they did not try to fly using GPS. Oh and did you notice that the landing gears are not raised? That in itself probably caused the accident as with the landing gear down, there not many places you can safely grab an Inspire 1.
But the real horror only comes after the s%!t hits the fan (pun intended). Iglesias throws the Inspire 1 into the crowd.
CNN also reported about the mishap: “Iglesias continued the show with his hand bloodied and bandaged. Pictures and video from the event show him smearing his blood on his T-shirt in the shape of a heart. “Another example of his professionalism!” his publicist Joe Bonilla said. Which one was the first example?
“I admire his professionalism, his great energy, always doing his 100 percent to satisfy his fans. It is really admirable and that is why he is the best. I hope is doing well,” said a fan on the Enrique Iglesias Tijuana fan club Facebook page as CNN quotes.
I just hope this fan will one day realize that his “professional” idol was putting the spectators’ lives in danger. And yes, this will harm the reputation of drones and the hobby, but the most important is that what happened was reckless beyond imagination and it’s a miracle that the latino star was the only one to get injured. All I can ask: why, why, why?
Kennedy Martinez
kennedy@dronethusiast.comKennedy Martinez is a resident writer who joined Dronethusiast at the beginning of 2019. She has years of experience reviewing drones and other tech products. When it comes to flying drones, Kennedy loves the ability to create artistic videos from a unique point of view. Kennedy enjoys researching new drones and other exciting products that are available to consumers which is why she is committed to creating the best buyer's guides for our readers.
I’m highly against citing redundancy as a potential contributor/aggravator to this incident. As an engineer that deals with “failure modes” of contraptions I’ve designed, the case here is much more the failure of the people to use this. I’d argue that your statements relating to that have only watered down the already difficult argument! These are powerful tools! Why you mentioned the slight possibility of safety improvements going to 6/8 rotors?? That would have made ZERO difference here!!
John I think you have misunderstood the point here being that Mr. Iglesias getting his fingers gashed is quite possible the best thing that could have happened. A quad by design is not able to fly any longer if even just one rotor goes bust, a motor fails, etc. A hexa or an octo can still fly and land in such a case. So I was not worried about Mr. Iglesias being able to grab the UAV mid flight or not(screw that, I am sorry), but about the crowd below if something happens. So you are right, if the goal is to do irresponsible things on stage, an octo is even more dangerous (more rotors to grab) :).
Under that logic, you shouldn’t drive a car close to people (e.g. cities) because if something happens (say, your brakes fail) you can kill people (there is even a higher risk that an Inspire). Yet, you won’t say that. Then why is it that a “drone” is so dangerous and should be kept away from people? After all, no one has died from a UAV accident (in comparison to cars, where people die every hour). This is not “Business > Safety”, it is simply “Safe business”. If you are an experienced pilot flying a modern platform (such as the Inspire) the risk is so low that it is safe enough.
Now, of course the Enrique Iglesias incident is stupid. Both Enrique and the pilot are idiots and deserved what they got. This doesn’t mean that serious people have to be banned from flying safely over a crowd who has authorized it, as it is the case in concerts.
And why not use a crane? Well, it is probably way more expensive, ugly, and old-school, not to mention that it ruins the sight for people.
“To all the drones I’ve loved before…”
I was mostly with you up to the last paragraph: “I just hope this fan will one day realize that his “professional” idol was putting the spectators’ lives in danger.”
There is absolutely no factual evidence to support the fear and ignorance around small personal drones. There have been hundreds of thousands of hours of flight time using these small aircraft, yet there is not one verifiable report of a drone crash that resulted in a serious injury to someone not connected to the flight. Not one. (A Band-Aid or cold compress is not a serious injury- See CFR 49-820.2). Personal drones have a safety record that all other segments of aviation would be jealous to have. (According to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, 100,000 hours in the General Aviation fleet would include at least one fatality.) Where’s the blood and mayhem to justify the perception that small personal drones are a threat to public safety?
More people have died from golf balls than have been injured by personal drones: http://tinyurl.com/oqyd7xn
Thank you for your input. It would be hard for me to accept that flying over a crowd that is unable to move out of the way if Inspire would be approaching. And I would not rule out pilot error here either which is the cause of a good number of the mishaps with quads. Also, as I pointed out: using an UAV for this purpose is unnecessary, feels like a stupid stunt for him to try to look good, rather than adding to the concert experience.