Drone crash into crowd at Bull Run in VA

Scott,
Thank you so much for coming on the forum and telling us the real story "straight from the horse's mouth", so to speak.
It's obviously distressing to all of us who have hopes of doing this commercially that this happened.
It was inevitable that something bad would happen eventually, and thank goodness nobody was seriously injured. The tragedy in New York this past week is evidence that it could have been much, much worse (although I know the multi rotors are not as dangerous as the 3D copters).
My only beef with you is the quote attributed to you in the media:

http://wtkr.com/2013/08/28/portsmouth-man-hit-by-drone-talks-about-experience/ ​

"Hansen says no training is required to fly a drone, but he only loans it out to pilots with at least a few weeks training."​

​

I (and many others here) were flabbergasted when we read this. I strongly believe that many months of training is necessary to safely operate a multi rotor, especially around people or other property. I remember how poorly I flew after the first few weeks of training, and how I relied on dozens of hours of working with a simulator, flying with a GoPro and reviewing my flights carefully. I think it's a mistake to lead people to believe that this stuff can be done with "at least a few weeks training".
Your thoughts?
Thank you again for coming here.
Steve

 

Scott thanks for the candid reply, it takes a lot of strong character to have the moral courage to fess up to these things.

I have a former background in aircraft accident investigations with the MQ-1B "Predator" drone for the US Air Force. I wore a "white hat" in those inquires, meaning my goal was not to place blame on why an incident occurred, but what were the causal facts. The reasoning behind this is so that other pilots in similar systems can learn from past mistakes or bring a trending problem to light to prevent future mishaps. I now serve as the Safety officer for PARCAP as well. I take these incidents and try to gather as much information on why they occurred and put them in an anonymous report for the PARCAP members. The goal is to keep a log of lessons learned on why something may have went wrong.

There are two reasons aircraft crash. One is that it is a maintenance malfunction of a critical system. Second it was due to pilot error. Sometimes its the combination of the two. A lot of time pilot error occurs because the pilot was not adequately trained in the system, or the pilot was trained but lacked proficiency and lastly the pilot got complacent.

With these multi-rotor accidents the first reason for pilot error seems to be the most common followed by complacency.

When I look at a crash with one of these systems I look at several factors.

1. Did the autopilot and/or primary flight control system function as advertised? Or was their some sort of system anomaly?

2. Was the system properly configured for flight?

3. What caused any anomaly? Were there environmental factors that led to the failure, or was it poor assembly by either the OEM and/or the end user.

4. Was the pilot aware of limitations to the system? Either temperature or power, or some electrical disturbance.

5. If there was a power system failure, i.e. the main battery bus, was there adequate redundant warning systems to alert the pilot. The small LED strips or the Light Bulb for WKM is not sufficient IMO. There needs to be some sort of real time telemetry for the aircraft either via an Onscreen display putting out the warning or the warning is being transmitted to the handheld controller with an alarm alerting the pilot that the battery is becoming depleted. Using a timer is not sufficient for these aircraft. LiPo batteries progressively deplete after so many uses.

6. Did the pilot understand the obstacles and limitations in the flying environment. EM interference solars flares are to name a few.

For pilots I train I look if they have adequate system knowledge and training in the said system

1. Do they understand all of the autopilot functions and switchology on the controls?

2. Do they understand how the fail-safes work for the specific system? Do they know how the aircraft will behave in the event of a lost comm signal. DJI systems are different than MK or any other OEM device.

3. Is the pilot versed in safe battery operations?

4. Can the pilot recognize when the system is not acting appropriately and apply timely steps to a safe recovery?

5. Most importantly, does the pilot exhibit sound judgement to not operate the aircraft in a manner that may be beyond their skill set or the beyond the known limitations for safe flight? Does the pilot UNDERSTAND, what is considered unsafe and negligent or reckless piloting of an aircraft.

Those are the things I look for. My goal as well as most on this board are not to throw stones as to why something crashed. However because of the volatile nature of what we are doing, you bet we will rebuke the hell out any individual that is operating in a wreck-less manner. Your pilots incident is the first notable incident of a crash in or near a crowed in the US with a heavy lift multirotor. So far these incidents happened Brazil and England. We rebuke this behavior and are very vocal, because we want to prevent this from happening again. As well as we want to show the US public that there is a group of professionals who are flying these things in a responsible manner. We want people not only to, not do these things, but to educate a potential client on why they should not even ask the question. I want the public to know that those of us doing it responsibly, are not peeking into bedroom windows, creating a public nuisance and more importantly not putting the public at risk. I was asked to fly over the Electric Daisy Carneval in Las Vegas. Not only was this a huge crowed of 40,000 people at the Vegas motor speedway. The Vegas motor speed way is inside the 1 mile extended center-line to Nellis Air Force Base. I had to tell the guy no, and told him what would happen if he found someone else to do it, how they would not only be in trouble for putting the public at risk that they would be in double trouble for flying in Nellis's airspace w/o permission.

This is why we are vocal. In no way is it meant to be personal. It is frustrating when they occur because they invoke unreasonable Knee-Jerk reactions from the public and puts us at risk. I hope you can understand why those of us here can be very terse and sensitive to these matters at times. I hope you were able to get to the bottom of why SJ-8 went down so it does not happen to your aircraft again. for the same reason. Obviously none of buy these things with the intent of crashing. I know this is wordy but I wanted to give you a good feel for the previous discussions.


Again I echo everyone else's appreciation , thanks for coming forward.


Shaun

 

Some day I can be a pro and fly one of those Reds cameras... its my dream. How do you do it or does it take a special helicopter.
Happy flying!
When you get back in the air I mean

 

Yeah I may have differed, I got bombarded with interviews, I hate being in front of the camera. I firmly believe that many months are required for training. I've heard there are specific courses down in Florida, about 1500-2k or something I read on a site. I even stressed to the FAA that I see tons of kids flying these things now and of course 3 days later after saying that I heard about that kid in NY that killed himself with the copter. It should totally be licensed to some extent. I would totally retract that statement if I could. We've only had 4 pilots to date. I used to hire Vortex Aerial who are huge in LA to fly for my videos, they were amazing, self taught as well. I totally agree, I mean if it takes 3-6 months to get a commercial license to fly a prop plane than it should be about the same if your going to fly an octocopter. I think thats what the FAA is trying to figure out.

 

haha

 

no problem, Just trying to put this behind us. It's inevitable to stop the movement so something like this would be such a shame to hinder it.

 

Media Hell is more like it. Plus since I wasn't even at the site of the crash but I own it so someone had to do it.

 

Your based in Half Moon Bay? Just a curious question, Have you ever tried to fly close or over Mavericks when it's breaking past 30 feet? famous surf spot.

 

back in the air already just closed sets for now. My Dragon Sensor is 3 weeks out, well see if RED gets it here on time. I'll be testing the hell out of that.

 

I can see Mavericks from my bedroom window. But there is no way to get close enough to fly safely over it, unless you launch from a boat, which is pretty dicey.

 

Scott,

Is it an accurate statement to say at this point the FAA or DOJ are not actively pursuing legal action against you or your company?

Also, could you elaborate on why you think you were the first to fly Red cameras on UAV's? From what I know this sounds incorrect.

 

Hey Scott! Thank you for sharing your story and it's great to hear what really happened. You are a truly an amazing film maker. This was a great teaching lesson for all of us in many aspects. It's easy for us to Monday Morning Quarterback from a computer. Kudos flying the RED! Balls of steel that I don't have.....!

I'm in the Richmond area and work the beach area often and hope to meet you one day!
Cheers,

 

Andy,

I'm not sure why you feel the need to answer for someone else. If they informed him they were or weren't, it is what it is and saying so here matters little here.

 

Epics and Scarlets have been flown on these rigs for a couple years now. Scott's company is certainly not the first to fly one. I'm curious about the question James raised as well. The FAA have sent cease and desist notices to guys just for promoting RC aerial services. I'm curious what the outcome of this will be since this incident happened while operating commercially.