EYES in the SKY
DJI Matrice 300 Incident Results in Serious Injury
Salmendra Chand is the Chief Remote Pilot and RPAS instructor in Fiji. He is employed at Drone Services Fiji
ADJI Matrice 300 RTK accident raises many issues to consider. This seems like a classic chain of the accident example where the issues that resulted in serious tendon and nerve damage began before the flight ever happened.
This accident occurred on May 6, 2021, in Georgia- United States of America.
According to the NTSB report the pilot was operating under CFR Part 107 but may not have held a valid certificate.
It appears to have been a demonstration flight by someone attempting to sell new drone technology to a law enforcement agency. The report states, “The purpose of the flight was to demonstrate the drone capabilities for a potential customer with a payload that consisted of a Zenmuse H20T camera”. The flight began during the day in the parking lot of the county jail. The location is a DJI GEO restricted flight zone.
However, the DJI restriction does not appear to cover the whole of the parking lot.
In addition, according to DJI, “The GEO system is advisory only. Each user is responsible for checking
official sources and determining what laws or regulations might apply to his or her flight. In some instances, DJI has selected widely-recommended general parameters without making any determination of whether this guidance matches regulations that may apply specifically to you.”
MATRICE 300 BECOME UNRESPONSIVE
During the demonstration flight, the Matrice 300 became unresponsive to control inputs. The pilot initiated an RTH, and the drone came back but hovered about 7 feet AGL over a vehicle in the parking lot and was still unresponsive to any control inputs.
This is where it really runs off the rails with poor Aeronautical Decision Making and Risk Management.
The pilot would have been flustered by the event, especially since it was hovering over a vehicle in front of potential customers.
But the best course of action at this point would have been to leave the aircraft hovering and allow the batteries to die.
Instead, this is what is reported to have happened:
“When the drone would not land, the Remote Pilot in Charge grabbed onto the landing gear and attempted to physically move the drone away from the vehicle.
The drone resisted the physical displacement and maintained its position over the vehicle.
The RPIC requested assistance from an attendee and handed him the remote controller. With guidance from the RPIC, attempted to shut down the motors while RPIC held onto the landing gear with both hands.
Finally, the RPIC attempted to remove the drone batteries when a propeller blade struck his right hand several times, which caused tendon and nerve damage.
After the injury was sustained, the RPIC continued to hold onto the drone for several minutes until the batteries were exhausted and the motors stopped.”
POINTS TO PONDER
Besides the obvious questions raised by the accident. There are more issues to think about.
How close were the people viewing the demonstration flight? The aircraft proved to be unresponsive to control inputs, so hopefully, people were directed to move far away. The flight behavior of the Matrice 300 at this point was uncertain.
Since this aircraft may have been operated by an employee or representative of a company, we also need to think about:
Do you know what the GPS margin of error is for your UA system? do you know how accurate your GPS is or isn’t?
This flight seems at the very least to have been operating close to a restricted zone, and the flight would need to have been planned outside the GPS margin of error distance?
Who owns the aircraft?
Do you know the qualifications and experience of the person who operates the aircraft and are they trained to operate the drone safely?
Was adequate preflight planning done before takeoff ?
Was the pre-flight in accordance with regulations?
Can the maintenance records of the Aircraft be provided?
This incident takes us back to my last article of the importance of having a Commercial Drone Insurance.