Hundreds of drones will be fished out of the Yarra River after they suffered a technical glitch during a light display and plunged into the water.
The special display on Friday night was supposed to light up the sky over Melbourne’s Docklands with messages in support of the Matildas ahead of the Football World Cup.
But social media videos show the drones suffering a technical glitch just moments into the display and going into “automatic land” mode.
Footage shows the drones slowly dropping out of formation and lowering into the Yarra River.
In a media release ahead of the event, the state government said the drones were expected to fly in formation for ten minutes.
The show was supposed to light up the sky “displaying a series of messages and images in support of our Matildas” ahead of a friendly match against France.
The Australian Traffic Network (ATN) operates the drones and said all flying regulations were being followed during the light display.
No one was injured during the incident and water police were on the scene on Friday night.
It is not yet known what caused the technical glitch, but Vic Lorusso from the company said around 350 of the 500 drones in the show had gone missing.
A team of five professional divers will be deployed on Sunday to dive into the river and retrieve the droves.
“The drones, to their credit, did what it was supposed to do when they got into a malfunction or technical glitch, which was to auto-land,” Mr Lorusso told The Age.
“Unfortunately, when you’re over water, an auto-land is in the water.
“Obviously it’s upsetting to us, but we’ve just got to find out the reason why it happened … but that said, I’m really happy because everyone’s safe, and that’s paramount to us.”
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