ERA24LA216 · Apellix B1 Washing Drone
Apellix B1 Washing Drone · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA216
- 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
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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
Apellix B1 Washing Drone
- Aircraft type
- Apellix B1
- Category
- Unknown
- 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
- FA33N7WLTR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2024)
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Organizational issues › Development
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The remote pilot in command (RPIC) reported that shortly after takeoff, the small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) was repositioning when it started to move erratically and would not respond to given commands. The RPIC attempted to disarm the sUAS by moving the control sticks down and inward, as he was instructed during his abbreviated training; however, the sUAS did not respond to the command and continued to operate erratically. The RPIC decided to disarm the sUAS by manually grabbing the sUAS and unplugging the battery. While disarming the sUAS, the RPIC sustained serious injuries from the propeller blades. Following the accident, the operator sent the sUAS to the manufacturer for repair without authorization. As a result, the sUAS and the controller could not be examined by the NTSB after the accident. The manufacturer had recovered data from the sUAS’s flight controller after it was returned to them, and those data were forwarded to the NTSB and examined. The data showed that the sUAS remained connected to the control station during the flight and that the event log reported a compass/magnetometer error on multiple occasions. A failure in the magnetometer could result in a compass error, and the sUAS moving erratically. The data also showed that despite the RPIC’s report that he attempted to disarm the sUAS, the control sticks were never moved to the correct position to disarm the sUAS. A review of the manufacturer’s operator’s manual and user manual for the sUAS revealed that there were no instructions on how to disarm the sUAS in an emergency. Aerial imagery of the accident location showed the sUAS was operating on a hospital roof with a large rectangular structure that was consistent with a commercial air conditioning unit that could result in magnetic interference. Given this information, it is likely that the sUAS’s magnetometer failed shortly after takeoff and while in close proximity to the commercial air conditioning units, which resulted in the sUAS’s erratic movements.
Probable cause
A failure of the sUAS’s magnetometer while operating in close proximity to commercial air conditioning equipment, which resulted in the sUAS’s erratic maneuvering. Contributing to the accident was the RPIC’s failure to input the appropriate command to disarm the sUAS and the manufacturer’s failure to include detailed information on how to disarm the sUAS in an emergency situation in their user/operator guidance documents.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA216
- Event ID
- 20240514194250
- Case number
- ERA24LA216
- 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, 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: 0b48553b437bce5f275b01d0d4e158e018af72c121d21a6efcb8cc9ae4585e27; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:45:36.746Z.