Strong Winds Cause of Facebook Drone Crash

The crash landing this summer of Facbeook’s Aquila drone was caused by the device’s inability to adjust to strong gusts of wind, a National Transportation Safety Board investigation has concluded.

Aquila’s autopilot, the report found, did not have the ability to deal with the stronger than normal winds and ended up landing too fast, resulting in the structural failure of one of the drone’s wings. Contributing to the June 28 crash landing was an “insufficient amount of drag to track the glideslope in the presence of atmospheric disturbances.”

The incident occurred while Aquila, which has a wingspan comparable to that of a Boeing 747, was coming in for a landing during a test flight in Yuma, Ariz.

Facebook, in a blog post, said it has “learned a lot” from the test flight and subsequent crash and is hard at work to address Aquila’s shortcomings.

“Future Aquila airframes will incorporate a drag device such as a spoiler or airbrake that the autopilot can use to steepen the descent without increasing airspeed,” Facebook said. “In future flights, we will command the autopilot to give priority to keeping the airspeed under the limit, sacrificing altitude tracking if required. This could mean a less accurate landing, or a go around if the airplane deviates too far above the glidepath.”

Aquila, the social network’s massive unmanned drone, is an important part of Facebook’s plan to bring the Internet to the four billion people worldwide that remain without affordable connections. Facebook has said it intends to push Aquila to its limits so it can “learn more, learn faster, and reach our ultimate goal of connecting people sooner.”

Designed by the social media network’s Connectivity Labs, the drone could eventually be used to ensure those who cannot connect through regular means will be able to access their e-mail, surf the Internet and, of course, join and use Facebook.

“Providing connectivity with solar-powered aircraft is something that hasn’t been done before, and there are still a lot of hard science and engineering problems to solve,” Facebook said. “This is a hard, years-long challenge, and things will break along the way — that’s the nature of engineering. Our results from the first test flight have solidified our confidence in the Aquila program and what we can potentially achieve with this technology. As long as we continue to learn, the sky is the limit.”

Jennifer Cowan is the Managing Editor for SiteProNews.

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