The Highland Towers tragedy happened almost 22 years ago, but the abandoned ruins of the two remaining condominium blocks are still a KL urban legend, with walking through its empty hallways (at night) almost a rite of passage for local youths, at least until the site was fenced off.
An online video crew calling itself Projekt OFO (Ohsem Flying Objekt) aimed to fly straight into the mystery of Highland Towers, with the help of their namesake: a camera strapped to the wings of a manually-controlled drone.
A YouTube video by Projekt OFO, titled Land of the Haunting: Highland Towers features almost 10 minutes of views from the ruins not seen since the tenants were still living there. The horror movie soundtrack might come across as a little cheesy, but the fact remains that Highland Towers hasn’t ever been documented this way.
When speaking about their work to Astro Awani, the young men behind Projekt OFO – Amri Iqwan Abd Majid, Muhamad Armi Abd Majib, Fauzy Mohd Rahim and Kamarul Ehram Kamaruddin – stressed that while drones might get a bad rap in certain circles, what OFO does is completely legal.
“We adhere to all the regulations set by the Department of Civil Aviation when it comes to drone flights: we don’t go over 120 metres in altitude above ground level, and the drones we fly do not exceed 20kg in weight,” said Amri.
The collective, which first became friends when studying in Gernany in 2005 and made Projekt OFO an official company in April this year, certainly don’t mess about. Here’s part of the collective’s fleet of drones that it uses for client work, from “basic” tasks such as aerial videography to 3D mapping services and disaster relief assistance:
That’s not quite the same as the drone you fly over the playground in your taman perumahan on the weekends, to be sure.
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