Bozerker
lvl.2
Flight distance : 85755 ft
Canada
Offline
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So, I'm brand new here and this is my first post, but this is a really interesting thread/incident (accident?). I'm glad to hear that DJI is going to provide some compensation and (I assume) investigate the wreckage to try to figure out what happened.
Not that anyone here necessarily cares, but I work in flight data analysis for aircraft accident prevention and investigation and some of the comments were a bit "odd", to say the least. I'll admit that I'm new (18 months) to the drone business, but I've been in aviation in a few capacities for 25+ years now.
At first,my initial thought about this incident was a gunshot, but the OP seems genuine/honest and the gun shot theory seemed less likely if it occurred on his farm (still possible, but unlikely).
But the fact that no other Phantom Drone (or maybe any other DJI drone) exploded is completely irrelevant. I didn't work on the TWA 800 crash, but I personally know some of the investigators that did (yeah, I'm old) and, as far as I know, no other 747 spontaneously exploded with no evidence of a bomb/missile before this terrible accident. As a result, design flaws were identified and corrected. I certainly do not mean any disrespect to the affected families but, unfortunately and despite our best efforts, s**t happens. We learn from it, and we fix it to prevent it from happening again. Thankfully, in the drone business, loss of life is incredibly rare but accidents/lost aircraft isn't 100% guaranteed.
Just because something never happened before doesn't mean it can never happen. And kudos to DJI for dealing with this particular incident. I'm sure there is a TON of information they can learn from the wreckage so the cost to replace a drone is a bargain compared to the value of the information they can gain from the wreckage.
Aviation is incredibly safe and I think DJI has made great strides to keep up with that enviable record - something I'm painfully reminded of every time I have to go to their site to authorize a Mavic 2 flight in my backyard that happens to be within 3 NM of an airfield (it's ok - I'm licensed and in touch with the field, but I'll admit I'm looking forward to the Mavic Mini so I can QUICKLY film my kids playing soccer).
Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. I'm not sure we'll ever find out what happened here, but I think DJI will and if there's a design issue, they'll resolve it. If they don't, they're setting themselves up for potential litigation, but they seem like the type of folks that want to keep this part of aviation safe.
As for this forum, for the "most" part the folks here seem to be pretty level headed, but nothing is ever 100%
Fly safe! |
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