CEN21LA224 · DJI Matrice 300
DJI Matrice 300 · Accident
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA224
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
DJI Matrice 300
- Aircraft type
- DJI MATRICE
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- FA3HW43WTF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 107: Small UAS
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Other
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Operating environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The remote pilot in command (RPIC) of the small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS, commonly known as a drone), intended to complete a demonstration flight next to a prison and was unaware of the restricted zone surrounding the prison. Before takeoff, the pilot set the home point within the buffer zone, which surrounded the restricted zone. About 7 minutes after takeoff, the RPIC initiated the return-to-home (RTH) function and drone proceeded toward the set home point. Because the home point was located within the buffer zone, the drone reached the buffer zone boundary and would not proceed to the set home point. The RPIC attempted to land the drone, but there were obstacles (vehicles) that prevented it from auto-landing and the buffer zone prevented it from relocating while still in RTH mode. Since the RPIC did not exit RTH mode, the drone would not respond to any manual control inputs.
During the landing attempts, the RPIC exited RTH mode four times, which would have allowed the drone to respond to manual control inputs; however, each time, the RPIC reactivated RTH mode within a few seconds, which again prohibited any manual control inputs. The RPIC grabbed onto the landing gear and attempted to physically move the drone away from the vehicles. The drone resisted the physical displacement and maintained its position over the vehicle. The RPIC requested assistance from a demonstration attendee and handed him the remote controller. The RPIC ultimately attempted to remove the drone batteries, during which a propeller blade struck his right hand several times, which resulted in serious injury.
The RPIC could have manually landed the drone if he had exited RTH mode. Also, the pilot should have discovered the restricted zone during preflight planning and used a landing zone and home point farther away from the restricted zone.
Probable cause
The remote pilot-in-command’s (RPIC) decision to physically hold onto the drone’s landing gear in flight, which resulted in the rotors striking his hand and causing serious injury. Contributing to the accident was the RPIC’s inadequate preflight planning and lack of airspace awareness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA224
- Event ID
- 20210518103104
- Case number
- CEN21LA224
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 305e512b1915eae33c4e473f1aa1c8691258922d5de80f6202d96a31160ec377; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:03:46.279Z.