Where to start with this footage.

It shows a multicopter pilot operating in a congested area in Auckland New Zealand with what might be described as a carefree attitude.

The aircraft lifts off and flies into a building. Something on board, almost certainly LiPo batteries powering the eight bladed craft starts smoking once it hits the ground.

In the right hands and with planning and preparation multicopters can produce exceptional low cost aerial imagery.

Its is easy to judge in retrospect. If this flight had been incident free we might never have been sent the link to the footage.

Should the NZ CAA authorised the flight they would not have allowed it to take place without some form of crowd control, the driver of LOVE 66 and owners of all the other parked cars would not have been happy if that airframe had bounced a little further and started burning on their vehicles.

Surrounding building owners would almost certainly have to have been consulted. What would have happened if the building had not had toughened glass and the airframe had flown in. A fire inside a building that the operator did not have access to??

This no doubt will be discussed at length across the various UA forums on the web. Speaking to sUAS News, Chris Anderson Editor of Wired and creator of the largest on line drone community DIYdrones had this to say:-

“If people would just OBEY THE RULES (ie, no flying over populated areas), such equipment failures wouldn’t endanger people, the way this one easily could have. The rules are reasonable and in place for a reason.

That was a crazy flight. Putting a heavy-lift Oct on a city street.”

I cannot confirm that its a Mikrokopter but the word on the streets points to it being one. The user submitting the video to YouTube ms1974sharko wonders as well. Looks like a droidworx camera mount to me, but could be one of many.

Walking out of work in Auckland CBD in New Zealand… happened to see a drone fail. I’m no expert on drones, but this one had a remote controlled SLR camera… which likely wasn’t working too well by the end.

This is possibly a Mikrokopter Octokopter XL? Maybe someone knows?

If you listen carefully you can hear one of the operators called emergency services – due to the leaking battery acid I suspect.

I have not flown this make of UA but some things I do know, the pilot appears not be sorting out yaw, right from take off. An after take off control check would not have gone amiss. If you look closely at the video the airframe is yawing to the right even before take off.

GPS hold would not work well with tall buildings surrounding the craft.

If you are Police force in the USA desperate to start rolling out multicopters expect this video to become the friend of detractors and if you are a small business willing the FAA allow you to start operating expect them to use it to demonstrate that training is required.

For all of us currently flying UA, it’s a reminder to be careful. Fly aways happen for all sorts of reasons.

On the bright side it has given me an excuse to have a tour of Auckland via street view and it looks to me that the building hit was on the corner of Bacons Lane / Chancery Street / Fields Lane