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Xinmei Shen

This article originally appeared on ABACUS
It was a record-breaking performance -- but it didn’t work out quite the way organizers had expected.
Chinese drone startup Ehang set a new Guinness World Record on Labor Day for flying the most drones at the same time. The South China Morning Post reports, 1,374 drones hovered above the ancient city wall in the central city of Xi’an -- breaking the record that was briefly held by Intel for a few months.
But the rest didn’t go as planned. The Ehang drone fleet was supposed to form characters that say the date “5.1”, among other things. But video shows that about half of the drones were out of sync, failing to complete the task.



At one point, some of the drones even started to fall.

The local government paid Ehang 10.5 million yuan (US$1.6 million) for the show. The company says it will explain what happened in the coming days.
The glitch comes as an embarrassment for Ehang -- considered one of China’s leading drone makers. Earlier this year, the company released a video showing a test flight of its self-flying passenger drones shuttling people around the southern city of Guangzhou.

For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters, subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report. Also roam China Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus.



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Drones

China’s Ehang breaks world record with drone extravaganza

The "5" completely disintegrated. (Picture: thepaper.cn)

This was supposed to show the shape of a city wall. (Picture: thepaper.cn)

A drone appears to crash onto the ground. (Picture: The Beijing News)

The drones couldn't display full phrases. (Picture: The Beijing News)

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China’s Ehang breaks world record with drone extravaganza

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}But it was chaos

But it was chaos