Falling drones create safety concerns at popular park in Wuxi

More than a hundred of drones have fallen out of the sky recently at a park in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, where thousands of people gather to enjoy cherry blossoms, prompting many netizens to express safety concerns.

At the Yuantouzhu scenic spot, which is home to 30,000 cherry trees, at least two to three drones fall out of the sky every day, with Wuxi Daily reporting that climbs to more than 10 a day during holidays and on weekends.

About 20 percent of the drones plunged into Taihu Lake, while the rest hit trees, buildings or simply fell to earth. The drones were worth an estimated 4,000 to 20,000 yuan ($610 to $2,440) each.

Miao Linyao, a retired civil servant in Wuxi, said he felt unsafe when he saw many drones hovering over tourists’ heads.

“Yuantouzhu scenic spot is dubbed ‘China’s most famed place to enjoy cherry blossoms’ and tourists across the country flood to the park in spring,” the 62-year-old said.

“I don’t think that people should fly drones whenever and wherever they want as the drones may pose a danger to others.”

Chen Dong, a 35-year-old bus driver from the neighboring city of Changzhou, said he likes to use drones to shoot videos.

“It’s not that I don’t want to get a permit to fly my drone in public,” he said.

“I just don’t know which departments I should submit my application to.”

He admitted that drones can interfere with each other when too many of them fly in the sky at the same time, and owners becoming distracted or operating the drones in unfamiliar circumstances could add to the risk.

Chen said he searched whether people could fly drones at the scenic spot on the internet, and was assured when he came across a reply from the site’s management office that “flying drones is allowed but the site takes no responsibility in retrieving the drones from the lake or trees”.

“The scenic spot has no jurisdiction over the airspace nor any law enforcement power to regulate the use of drones, and how to manage the use of drones still remains a problem,” Wuxi Daily quoted a scenic site official as saying.

Some scenic sites in China, such as Huangshan Mountain and parts of Hainan province, require drone users to submit applications in advance.

Huang Daqing, deputy chief engineer of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ UAV research institute, said that as a new product, drones are developing quickly but related laws cannot be legislated that fast.

“All the users of aircraft need to submit applications according to China’s regulations for the use of UAV (drones),” he said.

“They even need to report to local military theaters if the drones exceed certain flight altitudes. The users should report to the scenic site before they fly the drones and the scenic site should report to its superior authorities.

“In the end, the legislation concerning the drones will be improved in accordance with the laws of road traffic management.”