Of course this is a huge safety of flight issue. Now that they know of the issue they have to come up with corrective action to avoid a product liability lawsuit. Worse case senario this happens at an event with a bunch of bystanders. I cringe to imagine the ambulance chasing after that. For what it's worth they are not the only autopilot that will do this. Coincidently ardupilot would do this and they just fixed with the release of 2.9.
I'm not quite sure that Europeans are fully aware of the meaning of the U.S.A's strict product liability laws. Europe is nowhere near as litigious as the U.S.A. That's not to gainsay your point Shaun, but it is to point out that, as the copter industry matures over the next five years, more and more attention needs to be paid to flight safety, both by the aircraft vendors and by the operators. One of the provisions of Oregon Senate Bill 71, was to specifically state that anyone who operates a drone would be "strictly liable" for injury to people or property damage. That little provision doesn't sound like much, but what it means is that you are fully liable regardless of whether it was an accident or you meant it to happen. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability . As I understand it, strict liability is what causes juries to award millions of dollars to people when they're injured -- but I could be wrong -- I'm not an attorney and I don't play one on TV or the Internet. Oregon SB 71 is not yet law, but it gives one a taste of where things might go. And it isn't good news for those operating "drones" without insurance. And there shall be lawyers..... Andy.
Yeah I am afraid you are right on that. Which means in the long run this is going to ramp up the costs of using these. It does not help when you have people doing stupid things with them, like we see on Youtube etc.. Strict Liabilty will really sucks because in aviation mishaps are sometimes unavoidable. Every now and then a mishap occurs where no pilot interaction could have prevented it.