Question about the quad that almost fell on skier Marcel Hirscher

[violetwolf]

It's been called "Tombstone Engineering" ... We'll fix it when the public starts to notice all the tombstones.

 

[dazzab]

Several people who know of my MR interest have mentioned this incident to me. I've used it as an example of how emergencies are handled by professionals and pointed out that no one was injured, possibly due to their professionalism. In life, risk can only be mitigated. Insurance companies make a fortune because of that.

Let's keep things in perspective. Full size planes have fallen on, and killed more people, than MRs ever will.

 

[Av8Chuck]

It's been called "Tombstone Engineering" ... We'll fix it when the public starts to notice all the tombstones.

I might be more accepting of this hyperbola if anyone could point me to the first Tombstone? Any Tombstone? Just one?

 

[dazzab]

Well, there was the guy killed by his remote helicopter. He was alone at the time so we can only speculate what happened but apparently it was obvious that he was struck by the main rotor. There was also a young girl killed in a stadium during a demo of RC helicopters in Brazil (I think). Of course those were not multirotors and we all know that RC helicopters are ridiculously dangerous.

While I don't know of any MR related deaths, I am aware of some spectacular failures that didn't injure anyone simply due to luck. These incidents seem to be increasing so it's really only a matter of time, unfortunately. On the plus side, it does seem that awareness and training are on the quick rise so let's hope everything balances out.

 

[Old Man]

I might be more accepting of this hyperbola if anyone could point me to the first Tombstone? Any Tombstone? Just one?

The operative word here is 'Yet". In the beginning there were no tombstones for unsuspecting non participants with automobiles and airplanes, yet those did later occur. It's sort of like a spouse cheating on the other, because it hasn't happened does not mean it won't. Statistically the odds say it will in ~60% of all marriages. Since there has already been an incident in the U.K. where a non participating child lost an eye we might reasonably assume more serious incidents are forthcoming. Time and the number of people participating around other people are contributing factors to the equation. Then we have the events such as the one you experienced, but in that case you were a participant.

We can hope the people involved in the incident referenced in this thread prevented disaster though pure skill and professionalism, but "luck" hasn't been ruled out as the reason yet. It did not appear the copter that fell from the sky did so at a tangent to the skier, suggesting the copter was flying chase behind the competitor, at best only a few feet to one side. If such was the case, the risk would have been higher than it needed to be and operator skill at any level would need some amount of luck to be effectively preventative in the event of a system failure. For now we have the statements of the operator with no system data to support those statements. However, if it was a DJI system it's unlikely such data will ever be available, to either the interested public, the involved company, or incident investigators. This is another area that will require considerable expansion as the professional side of MR operation expands. Flight data collection, storage, and retrieval will eventually become a mandate in order for insurance companies to review loss claims.

 

[jfro]

I read somewhere it was a DJI Wookong. He did not know the skier was coming down at the time. The wookong M became unresponsive and the pilot thought he had a GPS fly away. He hit some sort of kill button (on a separate frequency) which is a requirement in his country. You can search on the other forum to see more about it. Search skier and wookong. While he was not flying behind the skier, organizers said he was not staying within the track he was suppose to be in. The drama continues......................

We all know that an occasional accident is most likely going to happen, even with the best practices and skill. The question is, is there zero tolerance for death or injury. I'm not sure of anything in life that can stand up to that standard.... Drones are being put to an impossible standard. Hopefully, some semblance of common sense will prevail.

In the FAA's rules proposal a while back, they had a comment about accidents and injury. They said something to the effect that there would be more lives saved than taken by this technology. They referenced injury and deaths from cell tower inspections if I remember right.

 

[scotth]

I read somewhere it was a DJI Wookong. He did not know the skier was coming down at the time. The wookong M became unresponsive and the pilot thought he had a GPS fly away. He hit some sort of kill button (on a separate frequency) which is a requirement in his country. You can search on the other forum to see more about it. Search skier and wookong. While he was not flying behind the skier, organizers said he was not staying within the track he was suppose to be in. The drama continues......................

We all know that an occasional accident is most likely going to happen, even with the best practices and skill. The question is, is there zero tolerance for death or injury. I'm not sure of anything in life that can stand up to that standard.... Drones are being put to an impossible standard. Hopefully, some semblance of common sense will prevail.

In the FAA's rules proposal a while back, they had a comment about accidents and injury. They said something to the effect that there would be more lives saved than taken by this technology. They referenced injury and deaths from cell tower inspections if I remember right.

I think the 333 requirements, as obtuse as they can be, would have prevented a similar occurrence and no surprise reaction from the skier, who would have been made aware of the risks during the safety brief. Interesting about the risk vs reward. The HotShot crash comes to mind.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I've been asking why it isn't a requirement to have flight controller code independently reviewed since I started flying. There seems to be plenty of evidence now the the Wookong FC can cause a loss of control. Even CASA testing has proved this. So why hasn't there been some independent testing and why are these flight controllers allowed to be sold given the evidence that they are susceptible to interference?

What is the details on this CASA testing?

 

[R_Lefebvre]

E
The pilot is always ultimately responsible when things go south. Customers and production companies can be very demanding and I can understand how a pilot can feel sometimes. Personally, I think the pilot in this case reacted very swiftly, decisively and according to regulation when he became aware of changes in responsiveness. The fact that the drone almost hit the athlete is most unfortunate. What I feel more sad about is that media and RC people are so eager to blame the pilot - despite the fact that drones should not be used in environments like this in the first place. The pilot surely did the best he could under the circumstances, no doubt about that.

In my experience, those who instantly jump to blame the pilot, are those with very weak technical skills, usually flying DJI equipment who know nothing about drone technology other than "Insert Plug A into Socket A" at best. Wanting to be able to say "that would never happen to me", but not being able to differentiate themselves with superior equipment (they are flying the same product) they use the only excuse they have. "Well, I'm just a better/more responsible pilot." They don't want to even touch the idea that this was caused by the system they use, because if it was, they can't do anything to prevent it as they have no alternative they know how to use.

Just my opinion.

 

[SamaraMedia]

I think the 333 requirements, as obtuse as they can be, would have prevented a similar occurrence and no surprise reaction from the skier, who would have been made aware of the risks during the safety brief. Interesting about the risk vs reward. The HotShot crash comes to mind.

If they were flying under 333, they would not flying at night, no?

Like the video I posted a while back with ESPN at a Shawn White event new Inspires flying at night with 333 exempt company...

 

[MiikisRC Sr]

GPS fly away ... unresponsive ... able to reduce altitude before killing the motors (came across this piece of info somewhere else) ...

A couple of years ago, (on a gig in a place where even the most irresponsible wouldn't fly), we had trouble with our pilot video downlink at 1.32 GHz - suddenly a TV broadcast appeared on the pilot's monitor (some kind of a chef programme) and the video was useless. Apparently someone in the area used this frequency for local broadcasting purposes ...

So, we changed the channel to another frequency on the 1.3 band. The video was ok, but all sats disappeared in a blink!! My theory (besides my previous with loose GPS PMU plugs) is, that if the pilot was in GPS mode and a) someone activated that same GPS frequency or b) they used 1.32 GHz and the lowpass filter failed - then the WKM surely flew in the dark if it was in GPS mode.

As a sidenote we never again fly in places or in conditions even remotely close to that gig. We were new in the business and we had to finish the gig for financial reasons ...

 

[scotth]

If they were flying under 333, they would not flying at night, no?

Like the video I posted a while back with ESPN at a Shawn White event new Inspires flying at night with 333 exempt company...

Correct. Day only.

 

[violetwolf]

I might be more accepting of this hyperbola if anyone could point me to the first Tombstone? Any Tombstone? Just one?

It's a metaphor

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I might be more accepting of this hyperbola if anyone could point me to the first Tombstone? Any Tombstone? Just one?

There was recently a 2 year old boy who lost an eye.

If you think liability on a death is expensive, you should really look at the lifetime disability payments to a person who has been blinded.

 

[dazzab]

What is the details on this CASA testing?

Unfortunately I can't give you 'official' details but you can probably request them from CASA. I was told from a reputable source that CASA did testing on the DJI copter that lost control while filming a marathon in Geraldton, Western Australia and injured one of the althletes that showed the cause was radio interference. But I never followed up with official sources to verify this. I fly a Wookong so I'm extremely interested to to find out if the numerous references to radio interference have any merit to them.

 

[Av8Chuck]

There was recently a 2 year old boy who lost an eye.

If you think liability on a death is expensive, you should really look at the lifetime disability payments to a person who has been blinded.

As unfortunate as this incident is, and it is extremely unfortunate, when comparing the safety record of civilian drones to just about anything else over the same period of time, it's not even close. This activity has been incredibly safe and the majority of operators tried to be safe.

Someone mentioned the young guy killed by a helicopter, again, very unfortunate, I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing any of these accidents, but that was a young guy flying a large RV helicopter 3D. That thing was scary spooling up and he was flying it way too close to himself and someone standing near him.

There were estimates that a million drones would be sold this Christmas, which is what motivated the FAA to rush though this registration. We will probably never know the number but I bet in the US its nowhere near that number. Of coarse this will be like the movie industry where every year they report bigger sales as more production companies and theaters go out of business. We'll probably never know the truth.

It's a metaphor

I'm aware that it's a metaphore.