AAIB Report: DJI Phantom 4 RTK, UAS lost power and dropped to the ground at DVinfo.net

Colin McDonald · May 21st, 2021, 10:14 AM

Quote:

The UAS, a DJI Phantom 4 RTK, was being operated in an automated flight mode to survey a railway track and surrounding infrastructure when one of the four propellers detached whilst in-flight. The aircraft rapidly descended from a height of 70 m (230 ft) where it struck the ground in the rear garden of a house. No one was injured.

With the increasing use of UAS for survey work I suppose it was inevitable that some kind of incident would occur eventually.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/a...nge-midlothian

Andrew Smith · May 22nd, 2021, 06:20 AM

From the report it did so more than "rapidly", as the motors were continuing under normal power even though the drone was upside down. The gem is located on page 5 of the report.

"The data indicated that, from a height of about 60 m, the aircraft descent rate increased beyond that associated with free fall. This was because of thrust from the propellers whilst the aircraft was inverted."

I guess there might be a software patch for that one in the future, granted though a broken propeller isn't an expected scenario. LOL.

Andrew

May 22nd, 2021, 06:20 AM	#2
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,064	Re: AAIB Report: DJI Phantom 4 RTK, UAS lost power and dropped to the ground From the report it did so more than "rapidly", as the motors were continuing under normal power even though the drone was upside down. The gem is located on page 5 of the report. "The data indicated that, from a height of about 60 m, the aircraft descent rate increased beyond that associated with free fall. This was because of thrust from the propellers whilst the aircraft was inverted." I guess there might be a software patch for that one in the future, granted though a broken propeller isn't an expected scenario. LOL. Andrew