One of the issues with drone companies considering themselves tech companies and not aircraft manufacturers and making sure their drones have an Airworthiness Certification is the lack of notification when things go wrong.
An accident in the UK had a very interesting statement in it by the investigation board.
In this accident, the drone came falling out of the sky.
The accident report states, “He had decided to return the UA to the launch site but a few seconds after turning the aircraft around, it spun violently and started to descend. Once again, the pilot regained control by applying full thrust and he activated the return to home function. The pilot was unsure if this was effective because he was also using the hand controller to manually control the UA’s return flight. The aircraft was returning to the launch area when it suddenly spun violently again before flying over the heads of the pilot and observer and colliding with trees in nearby woodland.”
“Examination of the remains of the front left propeller arm revealed the bonding between the upper and lower halves of the arm had failed allowing the two halves to separate. Three other UAs had also been discovered with similar bonding faults, two before the incident flight during the operator’s pre-use checks and one after the incident by the manufacturer.”
Here is the Key Part
“During consultation between the operator of the UAS and the manufacturer it was determined that six of the operator’s 10 Anafi USAs were included in a batch of 269 which the manufacturer had identified as potentially suffering from propeller arm bonding problems. Inspection confirmed that four of the six UAs showed bonding failures, including the accident aircraft. All four were sent to the manufacturer for repair. The manufacturer recommended that a strong adhesive tape should be used to secure the upper and lower halves of the propeller arms of the two remaining UAs from the same batch.”
What You Should Do
I would suggest if you are flying a Parrot Anafi or Anafi USA that you get some statement or confirmation from Parrot that your drone is not part of this defective group. Otherwise, tape up your propeller arms.
For aircraft subject to an Airworthiness Certification the manufacturer would have had to issue a Mandatory Service Bulletin or Airworthiness Directive and notify owners.
I would be shocked any drone manufacturer would actually reach out to purchasers of non-certified drones.