Skip to main content

Quadcopter crash leaves baseball fans feeling rather lucky

GoPro Karma
Les Shu/Digital Trends
For February’s Super Bowl, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned drone flights within 35 miles of the stadium. That’s right, 35 miles. It clearly didn’t want any ne’er-do-wells ruining the party by accidentally crashing their robot flying machine into the crowd or having it drop from the sky onto a player’s head, and so stipulated the ban in a bid to give security personnel one less thing to worry about, and give fans a safer game.

And before you say, “But how about that ‘drone show’ that kicked off Lady Gaga’s halftime gig?” Well, the dazzling aerial display was actually recorded a week earlier and slotted in on the night.

Recommended Videos

So by all accounts, everyone complied with the FAA’s request not to take their drones along to the big game.

But there are still those who just can’t resist grabbing their remotely controlled flying toy for some sky-based kicks — at a sports event.

Take Sunday’s baseball game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres at Petco Field. In the seventh inning, TV commentators spotted a GoPro Karma drone, with footage showing it buzzing about inside the venue.

“We have a drone that is flying in over the seats right now, it’s making its way behind the Diamondback dugout at third base,” the commentator said, quipping, “I’m pretty sure the Russians have something to do with this.”

But then the unidentified pilot loses control of the machine as it sails at speed into an empty seat among a group of spectators toward the back of the stadium. Luckily it didn’t score a direct hit on anyone, though you can see various parts — likely the Karma’s propellers — spinning off toward those close by.

While some reported drone accidents involve a machine dropping from the sky and landing on someone’s head, researchers are also learning more about the kind of damage that a flying drone — like the one in the footage above — can cause if it hits someone smack in the head.

Researchers at Virginia Tech suggest that features built into drones such as bumpers, enclosed rotors, and airbags could help reduce the risk of injury in the event of such collisions, though a little more common sense among a small number of drone owners would obviously go a long way to preventing accidents of this nature happening in the first place.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Range Rover’s first electric SUV has 48,000 pre-orders
Land Rover Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition

Range Rover, the brand made famous for its British-styled, luxury, all-terrain SUVs, is keen to show it means business about going electric.

And, according to the most recent investor presentation by parent company JLR, that’s all because Range Rover fans are showing the way. Not only was demand for Range Rover’s hybrid vehicles up 29% in the last six months, but customers are buying hybrids “as a stepping stone towards battery electric vehicles,” the company says.

Read more
BYD’s cheap EVs might remain out of Canada too
BYD Han

With Chinese-made electric vehicles facing stiff tariffs in both Europe and America, a stirring question for EV drivers has started to arise: Can the race to make EVs more affordable continue if the world leader is kept out of the race?

China’s BYD, recognized as a global leader in terms of affordability, had to backtrack on plans to reach the U.S. market after the Biden administration in May imposed 100% tariffs on EVs made in China.

Read more
Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say
Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

Read more