Drone Crash at Apple Park Flight Log Interpretation

[Matty1551]

Hey everyone. I'm posting this on behalf of the pilot who's drone crashed into Apple's HQ. I made a video about it and even sent my drone out to locate his crashed drone. He recently sent me his flight log from this incident. My initial interpretation is that he had a bad battery as you can see the voltage drop significantly after a few minutes of flight.

I'm hoping some of the great minds on this forum could take a look and either confirm my theory or tell me what really happened. Take a look below for the log.

LOG VIEWER - DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[Fly Dawg]

Compass errors, Battery Cell deviations, etc..ect..... the problems are too numerous to count. But yes, the battery was an issue. 3.2 v is the absolute minimum per cell for cut-off. You really didn't give enough details about the incident to give further insight.

 

[sar104]

Hey everyone. I'm posting this on behalf of the pilot who's drone crashed into Apple's HQ. I made a video about it and even sent my drone out to locate his crashed drone. He recently sent me his flight log from this incident. My initial interpretation is that he had a bad battery as you can see the voltage drop significantly after a few minutes of flight.

I'm hoping some of the great minds on this forum could take a look and either confirm my theory or tell me what really happened. Take a look below for the log.

LOG VIEWER - DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

As noted by @Fly Dawg, there were multiple errors that should have led to the flight being aborted. It did enter RTH mode at the end:

Unfortunately, possibly related to the propulsion issues at 393 s resulting from low cell voltages, it was apparently unable to maintain altitude and descended below the RTH altitude of 30 m and, even worse, below the building height of around 25 m (AHP). As a result, it most likely did not make it out of the spaceship.

 

[Matty1551]

Compass errors, Battery Cell deviations, etc..ect..... the problems are too numerous to count. But yes, the battery was an issue. 3.2 v is the absolute minimum per cell for cut-off. You really didn't give enough details about the incident to give further insight.


View attachment 95813

I appreciate the input. I don’t have a ton more details regarding the flight given that i was not there. However you can see the cached vid of the crash here. I would imagine that would offer more insight.

 

[sar104]

I appreciate the input. I don’t have a ton more details regarding the flight given that i was not there. However you can see the cached vid of the crash here. I would imagine that would offer more insight.

From that it appears that the flight came to grief due to rear left motor problems. The attitude data indicate that the rear left lost power, causing the aircraft to pitch up, roll left and yaw CCW. It was not complete failure however - just a rather uncontrolled descent.

 

[WV. Rootman]

Tether a hook to your drone and snatch it up.

 

[Razorback1]

Hey man tie a hook on your drone and retrieve it[emoji1360]

 

[Matty1551]

Hey man tie a hook on your drone and retrieve it[emoji1360]

Seeing comments like these makes me wonder about the legality of doing such a thing. Since this drone landed on private property could it be considered trespassing if you picked something up that landed on their property?

 

[Razorback1]

I doubt it would hold up in court but im thinking what are the odds of getting caught?

 

[DaveD]

Can a phantom lift another phantom?

 

[WV. Rootman]

yep!

 

[BigAl07]

Can a phantom lift another phantom?

Can it? Yes but it's' pretty close to MAX capacity so you would have limited flight time, limited distance, possibly horrible flight characteristics and so many other "negative" things going Phantom to Phantom. I would use something like an Inspire with the STORK drop system so if something goes wrong you can release the "payload".

 

[seanhagerty]

How bad would it be if your hook got caught on the solar panels instead of the drone?

 

[BigAl07]

How bad would it be if your hook got caught on the solar panels instead of the drone?

Very bad! Most likely loss of 2nd drone and some very unhappy people at Apple Park.

 

[Sfgiants24]

Did you get permission to fly from Apple? Did you use know before you fly map? Of course not because if you did you would see it’s restricted. Once again, this is why I’ve sold all my gear.people like you make it so no one wil be able to fly.

 

[WV. Rootman]

View attachment 96119

Did you get permission to fly from Apple? Did you use know before you fly map? Of course not because if you did you would see it’s restricted. Once again, this is why I’ve sold all my gear.people like you make it so no one wil be able to fly.

We aren't there yet. We can still fly a lot of places. No reason to sell everything. I personally enjoy flying. If it gets as bad as you say, I may stop.

 

[jqpworld]

As one would do with any incident investigation, given that abnormal performance appears to have started between the 372 and 374 marks where battery was 67%, GPS mode went into ATTI, and the roll/pitch/yaw started fluctuation at the same time, 1) What was the most probable cause; 2) What actions, pre-checks, or other preventative steps should be taken to mitigate recurrence?

 

[JamesT1950]

Hey man tie a hook on your drone and retrieve it[emoji1360]

How bad would it be if your hook got caught on the solar panels instead of the drone?

I would say make sure your quad is equipped with some sort of release mechanism just in case the cord gets caught on something else.

 

[Matty1551]

View attachment 96119

Did you get permission to fly from Apple? Did you use know before you fly map? Of course not because if you did you would see it’s restricted. Once again, this is why I’ve sold all my gear.people like you make it so no one wil be able to fly.

• You don't need authorization from Apple.
• You can get instant authorization to fly in that airspace.

 

[WV. Rootman]

Don’t do it. Apple has a drone jamming device that brings down all types of drones. You know they are smart. Apple just sets back and laughs. They aren’t going to let anyone in on their secrets. They do whatever they can to keep it that way.

Sounds good to me. Why not. They are not going to be passive about their security.