2024-07-06 Houston Crash RCA

Yuchen Lin Smile Khatri

Houston

06 Jul 2024

$2

06 Jul 2024

 Leadup

List the sequence of events that led to the incident.

1. Arm, take off in loiter to 10m altitude.

2. Roll forward via RC input.

3. Drone loses control and rolls 180 degrees while descending. Disarm.

4. Drone rolls 180 again as it lands roughly on the ground.

🙅‍♀️ Fault

Describe what didn't work as expected. If available, include relevant data visualizations.

Drone did not fly as intended in loiter mode.

👁 Detection

Report when the team detected the incident and how they knew it was happening. Describe how the team could've improved time to detection.

🙋‍♂️ Response

Report who responded to the incident and describe what they did at what times. Include any delays or obstacles to responding.

🙆‍♀️ Recovery

Report how the user impact was mitigated and when the incident was deemed resolved. Describe how the team could've improved time to mitigation.

🔎Five whys root cause identification

Run a 5-whys analysis to understand the true causes of the incident.

• EKF MAG0 failure.

• Poor tuning. The last time Houston was tuned was 1 year ago. Since then, new electronics have been mounted. Disable mag0 before tuning it again.

🗃Related records

Check if any past incidents could've had the same root cause. Note what mitigation was attempted in those incidents and ask why this incident occurred again.

🤔 Lessons learned

Describe what you learned, what went well, and how you can improve.