CASA has issued a safety bulletin with a difference. It’s for drones.
The bulletin, RPAS-SB-18/01 Issue 1, applies to DJI drones fitted with TB50 and TB55 batteries, including all DJI Matrice 200 series drones and the DJI Inspire 2. The Matrice and Inspire 2 are high-performance drones meant for professional and expert use.
The bulletin is in response to a few cases where these drone types have suffered a complete loss of power during flight, despite indications that there was sufficient energy left in the battery. The result, the bulletin says, was, ‘a rapid descent due to the immediate loss of lift’.
There have been no reports of injury or significant third-party property damage from these drone crashes.
The bulletin recommends that operators of the affected drones make no flights over people and monitor the media for updates to the battery situation.
‘As soon as CASA is satisfied that remediation of the root cause has been undertaken by the manufacturer in a satisfactory manner, CASA will issue a further update via the CASA website,’ the bulletin says.
DJI has issued its own bulletin on the situation.
