back to article Police drone plunged 70ft into pond after operator mashed pop-up that was actually the emergency cut-out button

A police drone operator managed to switch his craft off mid-flight, dropping it squarely into a pond while attempting to search for a missing person. The blunder happened after the hapless operator of the Aeryon Skyranger R60 accidentally button-mashed the drone's "emergency cut-out function icon". According to the Air …

  1. Coastal cutie

    3 points and To Count (if you know, you know) and definitely cake fine time

  2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    Fail safe?

    What sort of emergency cutout allows you to stop all rotors when 70' up? I could understand a shutoff like that when the device is at ground level, perhaps to avoid injury, but surely "cutoff when at 70feet" should trigger a safe landing first?

    1. Tom Chiverton 1 Silver badge

      Re: Fail safe?

      Or at least, for something so critical, some text instead of an (obviously) ambiguous icon ?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Angel

        Re: Fail safe?

        Or bring back the Big Red Button.

    2. Clive Galway

      Re: Fail safe?

      Yes, you really do want this ability. If the craft gets confused (Can be caused by something as simple as a loose motor or arm) then it can be ascending even when throttle is set to 0 (Most quads, even when throttle is set to 0, are still spinning props, because you need spinning props to control pitch/roll/yaw)

      Granted, a GPS-equipped quad can *maybe* work out that it isn't actually doing what it thinks it is doing, but to be safe you would always want a failsafe cutout

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fail safe?

        Yeah I can well imagine situations where that would be required, though as others have said perhaps with a more obvious icon or something. To my mind this comes down to a training failure. Lesson number 1 for anything like this should always be "In the worst case scenario x,y,z can happen, this is how to handle it"... only then do you go on to things like normal flight etc, so then before even getting into the air the pilot would know what that button does, and hopefully what that error meant.

        It's no different to any other potentially dangerous activity. If you go rifle shooting for instance the first things you're taught are the safety rules, what to do if a ceasefire is called etc, BEFORE you get your hands on a rifle.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fail safe?

        If the craft gets confused (Can be caused by something as simple as a loose motor or arm) then it can be ascending even when throttle is set to 0

        Hmm, sounds like a Boeing excuse. If the craft isn't reliable and fault-tolerant, it shouldn't be flying 20m up over peoples' heads.

    3. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      Re: Fail safe?

      If the emergency cutout released a small set of parachutes then the descent would be a lot less risky. This incident is just an example of what happens when a new device is created and used in new ways and new situations.

      1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: Fail safe?

        The history of avionics is full of post-event learning experiences. This is another one, which was harmless and as long as something is learned from it is not a bad thing.

        1. Mike 137 Silver badge

          Re: Fail safe?

          This wasn't an avionics failure (the cut-out did exactly what it was supposed to do) - it was an ergonomics failure.

          'The emergency cut-out "is accessed by holding the stylus over an icon on the flight controller screen showing a white aircraft on a black background. This causes the aircraft shadow under the icon to flash red," explained the AAIB. "By tapping the icon three times within three seconds the emergency cut out function is activated."'

          I would have implemented this as a physical red button under a bright yellow flip up cover with a black exclamation mark on it, accompanied by a clear warning label about the hazards of use in flight.

          As is increasingly common, the human interface designers failed to consider the situations in which their products are used or the clarity of communication between them and the user. Everything's an 'app' regardless of its criticality.

          There's well over half a century now of solid research into human interface usability, but the pity is that the current crop of designers don't bother to read it up (even supposing they know it exists).

          1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

            Re: Fail safe?

            Ok, bad use of terminology. I meant avaition/flying a whole rather than any specific part of it.

            And as for human interface usability... most of the current crop of designers seem to have absolutely no clue. It's all about using the latest fad tools to create the latest interface and nothing else seems to matter - usability, accessibility or longevity.

            1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

              Re: Fail safe?

              In particular, windows that pop up or scroll onto the screen, just into place where your finger is milliseconds away from pressing the button you *had* targetted, so "open fire" is hit instead.

              I almost shut down our sever the other day as something popped up over the start button as I was preparing to press 'log out' and 'shut down' scrolled under the pointer. Luckily it then said: This is odd, are you really sure you want to SHUT DOWN THE SERVER!?! Doubly lucky I was aware enough to avoid justbloodyclickdoitclickclickargghh!!!

              1. I am David Jones Silver badge

                Re: Fail safe?

                Whenever I do that I think there really should be a delay between a dialogue box appearing and any user inputs being accepted.

                1. cdrcat

                  Re: Fail safe?

                  Buttons that don’t click when you press them are a horrendous UI failure. You see the problem with slow user interfaces - people naturally click again and the second click can be on something behind a modal - fail.

                  You can fade-in the button, or grey out the button while it is disabled, but those solutions also lead to unwanted side-effects.

                  Pop up modals and unexpected scrolling are hard problems (on Android Chrome double clicking an input box selects, but the first click pops up the keyboard and scrolls the input box away, very annoying!)

                  1. This post has been deleted by its author

              2. RegGuy1 Silver badge

                Re: Fail safe?

                Doubly lucky I was aware enough to avoid justbloodyclickdoitclickclickargghh!!!

                SSSHHHIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!

                TFTFY :-)

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Fail safe?

            You couldn't wait until *I* showed up to post that exact comment of yours, couldn't you?

            Ok, in fairness, my red button didn't have a guard over it.

          3. I am David Jones Silver badge
            Trollface

            Re: Fail safe?

            I have to say, I've yet to see an iPhone with a physical button under a flip-up cover...

          4. Citizen99

            Re: Fail safe?

            AND 'Beware of the Leopard'

        2. Danny 2

          Re: Fail safe?

          @Nick Ryan -"The history of avionics is full of post-event learning experiences."

          I was just reading about Tunnock's Teacakes / Munchmallows and found this gem in Wikipedia -

          Retired RAF bomber pilot Tony Cunnane told of how Tunnock's Teacakes became a favourite ration snack of the V bomber nuclear deterrent flight crews based at RAF Gaydon, especially after discovering that they expanded at high altitude. This ended after one was left unwrapped and exploded on the instrument panel.

    4. Alan J. Wylie

      Re: Fail safe?

      It reminds me of the emergency stop button on Multi Wheel Journal Grinders that I used to work on.

      (I was out in Cleveland for 10 weeks in the late 80s installing one of the three shown in the photo in the above link).

      There were, IIRC, 9 large grinding wheels for finishing the journals and oil seal on a Ford V8 crankshaft. If the emergency stop was hit just as the cut started, power was removed from the motor rotating the crankshaft, the inertia in the grinding wheels would start spinning it backwards faster than it was ever meant to turn, it would pop out of its head/tailstocks, be thrown into the bed of the machine, shatter, and the pieces bounce out at high speed..

      1. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

        Re: Fail safe?

        So it's called emergency stop because when you stop it, it creates an emergency? Wel, I suppose it's not like they didn't warn you. Reminds me of this far side cartoon

    5. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Fail safe?

      >What sort of emergency cutout allows you to stop all rotors when 70' up?

      One that allows you to cut the rotors when it is in your hand but a fault makes it 'think' it's 70ft up

      1. Cuddles

        Re: Fail safe?

        Exactly. The whole point of an emergency shut off is that it simply shuts everything off, no questions asked. You can have all kinds of clever systems that try to handle things in a controlled manner before things get that bad, but once you hit the big red button you need to know that it will do exactly what it is supposed to. As soon as you interpose more checks in between the killswitch and the actual killing, you no longer have a killswitch at all.

        The problem in this case isn't that the killswitch exists, but that it's not actually a big red button. In case of an emergency it seems to be far too faffy and slow to activate reliably in hurry. But at the same time it's nowhere near obvious enough to avoid being done accidentally*. The reason people talk about big red buttons is that it usually really is a big red button - even if you're not trained on a system and don't know exactly what pressing it will do, it's very clear that it's something important that you probably shouldn't be pressing just to find out what it does, and if something goes horribly wrong and you don't know what to do, that's probably a good start. Something that needs serious training just to be able to recognise what the button looks like and how to press it is just terrible design from every direction.

        *Obviously there are plenty of stories here under the "Who, me?" heading about people bumping into buttons without even noticing they're there, but placement of physical switches is a different kind of design problem. The point being addressed here is rather about knowing what a button does and how to use it given that you're already at least somewhat aware that some controls are present.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: Fail safe?

          iow there is a reason why the button that's inside a red box with a glass cover and a line that says "In case of emergency break glass" is inside a red box with a glass cover and a line that says "In case of emergency break glass".

          The red box may not be possible, but the reason for it remains.

          Ditto the big red lever with a pin holding it in place and a sign saying "In case of emergency....etc"

          1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

            Re: Fail safe?

            Depending on the danger I've found them to usually be a bright yellow flip lid with a clearly visible red push button underneath or just a clearly visible red push button (usually where one needs to stop something immediately and any form of delay is a bad thing. These are basic standards and easily understandable.... except for the perpetrators of the "who me?" stories of course.

    6. SuperGeek

      Re: Fail safe?

      "Are you sure you want to engage emergency stop?"

      Tap "Yes"

      "Are you definitely sure you want to engage emergency stop?"

      Tap "Hell Yes! Do it!"

      "Are you REALLY ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY sure you want to engage emergency stop??"

      Tap "For FUCK'S SAKE...Yes!" button.

      Good UI design works wonders to help avoid a drone bath! Not so much to avoid an accident though!

  3. Robin Bradshaw

    Do Thales make police drones too?

    Have they added the Army's Watchkeeper lithobraking technology to police drones now?

    Is this what people mean when they talk about the militarisation of the police?

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Do Thales make police drones too?

      It was aquabraking, not lithobraking. And I don't know how big the pond was,* but if it was the back garden variety then the operator had a pretty good aim and the military should higher them.

      *I've googled it, and it's bigger than a cul-de-sac. This is where too much information spoils a joke.

      1. Nick Ryan Silver badge
        Stop

        Re: Do Thales make police drones too?

        I'm sorry. Please restate your reply using officially support units.

        We have standards to keep round here...

      2. BinkyTheHorse
        Headmaster

        Re: Do Thales make police drones too?

        Unless the drone has nonnegative buoyancy, or the pond is bottomless (drains over the Great Turtle I guess?), the difference is largely academic :).

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Do Thales make police drones too?

        If the done operator would have highered the done, he wouldn't be in this mess!

        (Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here all week, try the veal...)

  4. RSW

    Do I read this right that the plod pilots don't have to have a CAA cert to fly a working drone?

    Yet as a private flyer I have to be registered and take a test

    1. Clive Galway

      No-one does any more - the new rules don't differentiate between recreational and commercial use - it's all to do with weight of drone and where you want to fly it.

      1. RSW

        So the police operate as Open Cat all the time, where I would have thought they would need to be in Specific cat

        So do they even have to do the CofC test after the 2hrs training?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        So you're saying it's a simple matter of weight ratios?

        1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

          African or European drones?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Which one's non-migratory?

          2. KarMann Silver badge
            Coat

            Neither, in post-Brexit Britain.

    2. macjules

      Also, Three Bridges is very close to Gatwick - had they checked permission to use so close to a major airport?

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Alien

        I was just wondering if suddenly disappearing drones near to airports was becoming a "thing". The Crawley Triangle?

  5. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "police were allowed to fly drones after just two hours' in-house training"

    That appears to be quite insufficient. I think they should boost that to 10.

    Maybe even 11.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "police were allowed to fly drones after just two hours' in-house training"

      Do they have 70 ft ceilings in their training centre?

  6. Clive Galway

    Figures - police allowed to fly a 3.5kg drone in a built up area after just 2hrs training, but a hobbyist pilot has to do a >4hr "A2 CofC" to fly a 0.25kg drone and with more restrictions on where they can fly - a 14x heavier drone with half as much training (And to be fair most people doing an A2 CofC already probably have many hours under their belt)

    1. Steve 53

      I looked at the famous "Derby police peak district drone shaming" and cringed a bit after taking my A2 CofC, the shot taken above a car with people getting in and out made me wonder if there is an Article 241 question there... Could easily have derisked the shot by taking it from a 60 degree angle rather than 90.

      Doesn't feel like they're doing appropriate risk assessments

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        But while they are out crashing drones that aren't running over pedestrians while playing 'police camera action'

  7. Danny 2

    Won't somebody think of the ducklings?

    ...dropping it squarely into a pond...Investigators added that an object of similar weight to the Skyranger drone could cause fatal injuries to somebody wearing a hard hat if dropped from a height of just four metres, or 13 feet.

    I mentioned this crash a couple of days ago advocating police drones are safer than police helicopters. I said if a drone fell then nobody would die, but I'm happy to stand corrected. I'd still rather a drone fell on me than a helicopter. And as a tax-payer (?) I'd rather pay for a drone over a cop-ter.

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Look at that thing in the sky! *thwack*

      "I'd still rather a drone fell on me than a helicopter."

      If you're dead, you're dead. It doesn't matter if it was a 13kg drone or a 11 tonne chinook that did it.

      And drones are demonstrably more likely to drop out the sky - because the pilots have less training, easy access to a kill switch, and aren't sitting in the beast putting their life on the line.

      And because drones are cheap, we're likely to see far more deployed far more often. So overall, the risk to bystanders from drones, while small, will probably end up greater than the risk from helicopters.That said, drones will probably still be safer overall - because when a helicopter crashes, there are guaranteed humans in the accident.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Look at that thing in the sky! *thwack*

        Actually aviation safety embodies an energy concept in a lot of it's planning. Small light aircraft crashing do less damage than heavy fast ones, and hat's reflected in the quantum of regulation. Single seat microlights are unregulated, big fast jets are very regulated. And while a 35kg drone on your head from 10 giraffes is likely to spoil your day, it's not going to more than one person at a time (and yes, obviously, you could be driving an open topped lorry full of kittens and veer into a petrol station with an attached orphanage). A Chinook can spoil a lot of people's days.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Look at that thing in the sky! *thwack*

        > If you're dead, you're dead. It doesn't matter if it was a 13kg drone or a 11 tonne chinook that did it.

        But a drone is much safer. It will only just barely kill you.

        1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
          Black Helicopters

          Re: Look at that thing in the sky! *thwack*

          FORD: That’s the way it’s looking. Perhaps we should just ask them if they want it back. You know, if we were reasonably polite about it -

          ZAPHOD: They might just let us off with being lightly killed.

          FORD: Yeah, well, at least it’s better than, ooh, than er…

          ZAPHOD: It isn’t better than anything at all, is it?!

          FORD: Er, no.

          1. KarMann Silver badge
            Alien

            Re: Look at that thing in the sky! *thwack*

            He says that as though he's never had to listen to Vogon poetry before.

    2. Alister

      Re: Won't somebody think of the ducklings?

      And as a tax-payer (?) I'd rather pay for a drone over a cop-ter.

      As was pointed out to you in the previous discussion, there are things that a helicopter can do which a drone can't - as one example, following and recording a high-speed pursuit on a motorway - and as most police services already have a helicopter, why not use it to its best advantage?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Won't somebody think of the ducklings?

        Well the country already has Typhoon jets and they are even better at high speed pursuits. Your argument is a bit 'well I have his sledgehammer - so lets use it to crack nuts'

        1. find users who cut cat tail

          Re: Won't somebody think of the ducklings?

          Sledgehammers work just fine for cracking nuts, especially the smaller ones (larger ones can be unwieldy I'll give you that).

  8. Greybearded old scrote Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Great UI

    (tap) Why won't this thing (tap) go away? (tap) Ah, that's got it. Now where's my bloody drone got to?

    I would have used the joke icon, but this sort of thing is deadly serious.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Great UI

      I hope trainee police marksmen have enough training to tell the difference between a trigger and a safety, after all the UI on a rifle is fairly simple, isn't it ?

      1. Oliver Mayes

        Re: Great UI

        It's a simple point and click.

        1. DJV Silver badge

          Re: It's a simple point and click

          It's a simple point and crash.

          FTFY

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Allo Allo Allo

    What’s this for then....?

  10. James Ashton
    FAIL

    Touch screen emergency shut off?

    This is a terrible user interface design. Anything as serious as an emergency kill switch needs to be a real, physical switch under a guard mechanism. The cost of such an addition would be a small fraction of the total hardware cost for one of these units.

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

      This was my thought. Nothing expensively destructive or dangerous on any device should consist of a pretty little picture activated by tapping - (even if it takes three taps)

      Good old form defeating function- again.

      1. Robin Bradshaw

        Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

        Given that the whole world has been trained to click the piss off button on any popup (we use cookies/gdpr/use the app instead etc etc) that gets in the way like they were some kind of demented pigeon, so they can do what they were trying to do, even multiple clicks is not safe.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

          Spot on. I'd have upvoted 1000 times if I could.

        2. ChrisC Silver badge

          Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

          And especially not multiple clicks in the same position. Double bonus points if you design your UI like that when the system has a laggy UI which doesn't give the user immediate feedback that they've tapped/clicked the button the first time, so they then press it again because they think their first attempt hadn't even registered at all...

          Can't remember what system it was that caught me out with this many moons ago, but that one single experience has made me utterly ruthless about requiring any UI designs I work on myself to not do stupid stuff like this - the user MUST get immediate feedback that their input has been recognised even if the system isn't ready to process that input just yet, and any destructive action MUST require at least two physically seperate actions to avoid "double click disaster" scenarios.

          1. DJV Silver badge

            Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

            Reminds me of one of my favourite Gary Larson cartoons - "Wings stay on, Wings fall off" one:

            https://i.imgur.com/LR0VWP9.png

      2. Vulch

        Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

        Many years ago I had a removeable pack disc drive that would pick three questions from a pool of around six to make sure you really wanted to format a pack. Half the questions in the pool needed an answer of "No" rather than "Yes" so just clicking the "Yes" button three times usually wouldn't work.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

          Our mainframe operator's console was plagued by the repeated affirmative response to a destructive series of prompts - so we inverted the last one. A tactic then used for the next 40 years for any destructive confirmation. My maxim has always been "avoid burning your bridges".

        2. Stoneshop
          Headmaster

          Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

          The storage arrays that we were responsible for half a decade back required actually typing "YES" into a dialog field, twice, if you were about to initiate some irreversible and destructive action.

          I'd have phrased the second question so that you'd have to answer "NO" to proceed, but as it was it was already pretty well guarded against inadvertent zapping.

      3. Sgt_Oddball
        Facepalm

        Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

        Taking three taps... that implies the UI dev has never rage clicked ANYTHING to make it just go away...

        Having a modal window on something that could cut the power shouldn't be possible and if it's blocking what a user is focusing on (like the video feed for example) it should never block that as the user can and will put a biblical amount of effort in getting rid of the popup as soon as humanly possible so they can get back to concentrating on the task at hand.

        A much better way would be some flashing indicator elsewhere on the screen that requires interaction to open it, implying the user is ready to view the message. Even then it should not obscure the main video feed.

        As noted by others, the best option for a full blown cut out is a physical switch behind a molly-guard of some sort. The sort that requires actual intent rather than just finger mashing.

    2. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

      The lack of a well designed emergency switch is not that far from the lack of a decently designed database that loses data. This is how we do things these days. I'm sure someone is going to release a drone app update to "fix" this problem in a week or twelve.

      1. FatalR

        Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

        They could release an app update, or EoL it and release Drone 3.0.

    3. BazNav

      Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

      They'll have an inquiry, determine that 3 clicks isn't enough safety and then redesign the interface to require 4 clicks.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

      Good luck getting them to add a physical button to an iPad app, because god forbid anyone make a drone that uses and actual physical controller these days.

      I'd put a fiver on the Emergency Stop icon being in the bottom left or right of the screen, exactly where the base of your thumb would occasionally rest as you try to wrangle a pair of "virtual joysticks" to steer the thing.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

        "Good luck getting them to add a physical button to an iPad app, because god forbid anyone make a drone that uses and actual physical controller these days.""

        I really hope a pro-grade drone used on official Police business has a proper, dedicated controller does not require the officers smart phone be mounted into a cradle to operate it.

        1. CRConrad Bronze badge

          Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

          Nah, relax, it probably doesn't require the officer's smart phone be mounted into a cradle. My guess would be it doesn't even have a cradle; just the phone.

      2. KBeee

        Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

        A few years ago a colleague of mine bought a quite expensive drone, and being concientious took it down to a deserted beach early in the morning to practice flying it. Inevitably within seconds he'd crashed it into the sea. Putting his iphone down on a rock he waded out to retrieve the drone. Returning to shore he found a wave had washed his phone away. I'd call that 2 for 2.

    5. ThatOne Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

      > This is a terrible user interface design

      It fails on every interface design level there is: No indication what it does, no feedback, no safety against accidental triggering.

      It succeeds in one point though: It increases sales...

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Touch screen emergency shut off?

        F35 avionics:

        Are you sure you want to eject?

        Enter the last three digits of the aircraft serial number to confirm eject

        Please wait 60seconds before retrying eject

        A confirmation email has been sent to your account, click on the link to confirm the eject

  11. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    Yes the pilot was a dick.

    The force and the CAA are also dicks for allowing pilots to fly after only two hours training.

    And the manufacturer is a dick having an emergency cutout that will simply drop a flying drone out of the sky with potentially fatal consequences.

    Sounds like a perfect storm of dickery.

    However the biggest failure here is definitely with the CAA. Their regulation is clearly inadequate. I wonder if they are going to revisit their regulations following this or wait until somebody is killed or seriously injured as a result of such lax legislation. The answer is probably neither as their response to this event will probably be of the "nobody died nobody got pregnant" ilk. Then of course if somebody is killed in a similar even later changing the regulations then would be seen as an admission of liability so they wouldn't do it for fear of financial consequences.

    1. Clive Galway

      > And the manufacturer is a dick having an emergency cutout that will simply drop a flying drone out of the sky with potentially fatal consequences

      Not at all - this would be preferable to allowing an out-of-control drone to keep going, where it could hit an aircraft and kill hundreds. Your criticism assumes a flight controller (The motherboard of the drone) which is infallible - ie it always knows exactly what it's current state is and can override the instructions of the operator. It's better to have a human decide if it's safer to kill all motors and let it plummet rather than fly off into the distance. After all, he skipped THREE WARNINGS, so the fault is 100% with the operator, not the manufacturer

      1. Greybearded old scrote Silver badge

        Three warnings that consisted of an obscure icon, which probably meant something to the designer only.

        We're all tempted to shout PEBCAK at times, but I prefer the attitude promoted by Donald Norman. It's rarely the fault of the user.

      2. Cynic_999

        I question whether a cutout switch is needed at all - surely the normal powerdown sequence (that you use after landing) is perfectly adequate for that purpose? On quadcopters I have flown this consists of reducing the throttle to zero, followed by putting the controls in a specific position for a second or so (e.g. right stick in bottom left corner and left stick in bottom right corner). It would rarely if ever be needed during flight - the "emergency" button/switch usually has one of the following functions: "stop and hold position," "return home" or "Descend and land immediately".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          That only works if all your sensors are reading correctly. An emergency cutout is designed to deal with the situation where the drone thinks it is level and stationary but is actually ascending, or traveling at quite some speed. It is a step that would normally be used only after other procedures for a normal power down and landing have been followed.

          The problem here is not that an emergency cut out exists, but that it is too easy to trigger without the operator knowing what they were doing, however, it does need to be something that can be done quickly, because drones can go pretty fast, especially when their sensors fail.

          1. keith_w

            I wonder how a remote operator would know that the drone is ascending/descending in an inappropriate manner if the drone beleives that it is flying straight and level, since the information the operator relies on is provided by the sensors in the drone?

            1. Clive Galway

              Because there is a camera on the drone, and you can see what the drone is doing via the video feed

    2. Greybearded old scrote Silver badge

      Full size flying is as safe as it is because the CAA takes near misses and non-fatals seriously. I'd expect sensible new rules from them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        But they won't apply for the police operators.

        "I'm the Law", as the Judge always says.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Air law applies to police operators of "full size" aircraft in the same way as other aircraft. There are exemptions in air law for aerial work, and police aircraft are doing that, but there are no specific exemptions that say "the police don't have to follow CAA laws".

          I imagine that the CAA takes the same view of drone regulation, that the police are just aircraft operators involved in aerial work, the same as people operating drones for surveying, photography, crop dusting etc. Hopefully the result will be much stricter requirements for drone operators engaged in aerial work (as opposed to recreational flying away from other people).

      2. Cynic_999

        In addition all full-size aircraft must be capable of flying and landing following a complete power failure.

        1. ChrisC Silver badge

          I suspect there are some caveats/exemptions to that, given that a) most/all helicopters have areas on their height/velocity diagrams within which it would be difficult/impossible to recover from in the event of a total loss of engine power, b) for some military aircraft, the best pilots in the world aren't going to be able to fly, let alone land them if all power is lost (where "all power" includes the electrical supplies needed to maintain the FBW controls and the flight computers), and c) in some other power loss scenarios not covered by the above, "landing" may well need to be prefixed with "crash" in order to correctly describe the outcome of the aircraft returning to earth, as opposed to the rather more benign return that might be assumed/implied by the use of the word "landing" alone...

  12. trevorde Silver badge

    Made perfect sense at the time

    'Training' exercise after a few hours at the police social club:

    https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/13000-merseyside-police-drone-lost-3364040

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The cut-off should make the whole screen flashing red after two clicks - and then have a different target area for the final confirmation.

    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      As I read it, it did. It required three taps on a particular icon followed by confirmation in a popup. That's not entirely unreasonable as there is an important balance between really wanting to shut something down in a hurry and preventing accidental shut downs. Maybe it needs to be amended to make it more obvious and to prevent the "pigeon peck" scenario that was comically mentioned above where closing annoying popups has become a standard reaction.

      A physical, separate emergency cut off that's easily reachable has been standard in industrial control systems for many years for good resaon.

  14. Randolf McKinley
    Facepalm

    3.5kg and 70 feet!

    Are we American? Shouldn't we at least use consistent sets of units?

    1. Ozumo

      That's about 22 cricket balls falling from a height of about 5 London buses.

      1. myhandler

        Falling from a chain's height, shurely?

        1. Ozumo

          0.0197 Waleses.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Wales are for area! This is linguine territory!

            152.4 Lg to be somewhere in the vicinity of accurate!

    2. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Americans are consistent. It'd be lbs and feet.

      In the UK we mix the measurements any old way.

      Our petrol is priced in ltrs but our consumption measured in miles per gallon.

      We weigh ourselves in Stones and lbs but our sugar and flour in Kgs and our recipes in either.

      We measure distances commonly in Km - unless we don't, except on official road signs - always miles and yards, and Satnav can be either and may even use decimals of miles- or fractions of miles or possibly miles and yards or feet.

      We even combine them. More than once I've heard the likes of " it's 5cm over 3ft".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "" it's 5cm over 3ft"

        That's two thumb widths over an arm's length.

      2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

        Six feet of 2.5 mill cable and three metres of 2-by-four timber. :)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          " three metres of 2-by-four timber."

          Building a new display table I ordered up some 38mmx65mm timber and a sheet of hardwood ply from Wickes. The nominal sizes seemed exactly what I wanted for an 8'x4' table without further cutting etc.

          The ply was 2440mm long (viz 8 feet) - but the timber was a metric equivalent at only 2400mm. Fortunately using staggered butt joints allowed the base structure length to be increased to 2400+35 (came out nicely at 2440mm). It was only when fitting the ply that I discovered the base timber lengths were themselves different from each other by a few mm. I had naively assumed such things are cut in a standard jig. No one else will notice it isn't a perfect rectangle.

          1. Black Betty

            Full size sheets are still imperial for a reason.

            It allows for them to be cut down to smaller sizes while allowing for the saw kerf.

            OTOH pre-cut stick lumber is is cut 'accurately' to length because the machinery that does the cutting is now fully automated and PHBs are cheap bastards. If you want 'overs' buy full (6m) lengths and have it cut to your specifications.

      3. jake Silver badge

        "We even combine them."

        Indeed. Last time I was in Blighty, during lunch I ordered myself a pint of bitter and the Wife a half liter of water.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          The real one is the half litre of water and the 8oz steak

      4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "We measure distances commonly in Km - unless we don't, except on official road signs - always miles and yards,"

        Just to confuse things eve further, the 3-2-1 exit markers on dual carriageways and motorways indicate 100s of metres to the exit. Some road warning signs are in meters, others in yards, but at least are indicated as such with the m and yds designations. Same applies to roadworks signs. I've even seen road works signs indicating works in 800yds followed by the next one showing 400m!!

        1. marcellothearcane

          According to the highway code, they're 100 yards apart for motorways.

          https://highwaycodeuk.co.uk/information-signs.html

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Thanks for that. There were yards back when I took my test, but a few years back a copper told me they were in metres nowadays. If I ever see him again I shall apply the cluestick!

    3. Down not across

      Are we American? Shouldn't we at least use consistent sets of units?

      Aviation uses feet for altitude. For rest of measurements to be in metric makes sense.

  15. Potemkine! Silver badge

    There may be sometimes a difference between intent and usage

    The User Friendly way

  16. Dr_N

    It's the (new) Sweeney.

    "Cut out, you slaaaaag."

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is why…

    > Investigators added that an object of similar weight to the Skyranger drone could cause fatal injuries to somebody wearing a hard hat if dropped from a height of just four metres, or 13 feet.

    …I don't wear a hard hat.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: This is why…

      That's an interesting quote. An object of similar weight could be a cannon ball or a very large bag of feathers. Aerodynamic shape is very relevant in a statement like that. Maybe they should re-run their tests with something of similar mass and shape, such as, I dunno, maybe a Skyranger drone?

  18. jake Silver badge

    How to scare people, lesson one:

    "Investigators added that an object of similar weight to the Skyranger drone could cause fatal injuries to somebody wearing a hard hat if dropped from a height of just four metres, or 13 feet."

    Yeah, but needle-sharp 3.5kg iridium spikes don't often fall point-down [o|i]nto people wearing hardhats. Not in my experience, anyway.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How to scare people, lesson one:

      Does an unpowered drone fall with the passively rotating blades giving some compensating lift like an autogiro? Possibly the rotor blades are too small to have a significant effect at that lower speed?

      1. whitepines

        Re: How to scare people, lesson one:

        Does an unpowered drone fall with the passively rotating blades giving some compensating lift like an autogiro?

        Considering a quadcopter has zero static stability, relying only on the flight computer and powered blades to stay upright, the most likely outcome is a tumbling drone falling much like a plastic brick of similar size and weight.

  19. TheRealRoland
    Unhappy

    What is the actual training regimen / schedule? Having flown only a couple of hours in what, a year? A month, a week? Are these drone 'pilots' full time assigned a drone? Or is this a 'Can I, guv? Can I? It's been a while, but i can do it!' ?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Most organisations such as Police or military are usually quite strict about only giving tasks or equipment to people who have completed the relevant training course(s) and are certified. How good the training is and whether the certification is actually meaningful is a different hovercraft full of eels.

  20. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Pirate

    Not Only But Also

    I missed out on a offshore trip (Icon), part of which would have been learning to operate a ROV (Submersible), thanks to having my wisdom teeth out I couldn't go, my colleague did go, managed to sink\lose it (They did recover it). He received so much stick, he quit the job.

  21. j.bourne

    Pop-up UI failure

    Here's the real reason "an unfamiliar warning popped up on its flight controller." Popped up being the words of note. It's not clear that this popped up 'over' some other button (the emergency cut-off) but if that is what happened then there's your culprit - a UI designer that allows critical flight controls to be covered up by a pop-up 'warning'. Why a pop-up - why not a fixed message window on the screen? Why a screen in the first place: why not physical controls for the critical flight controls?

    1. CRConrad Bronze badge

      Re: Pop-up UI failure

      It's not clear that this popped up 'over' some other button (the emergency cut-off)
      Not quite clear on your meaning: I don't think it popped up over the emergency cut-off; as I read it, it was the emergency cut-off that popped up. Apparently, it was big enough to pop up over most of the screen.

      Why a pop-up - why not a fixed message window on the screen? Why a screen in the first place: why not physical controls for the critical flight controls?
      Because the cheap bastards don't deliver a physical control unit at all: The interface is a smartphone app.

  22. Stratman

    Has it been determined why the pop up appeared?

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