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Purdue DispatchPurdue SafetyFAA only if certain conditions are metThe FAA requires a report within 10 days if there is serious injury, loss of consciousness, or more than $500 in damage to property, excluding the drone.NASA ASRSNTSB only for specific eventsThe NTSB requires reporting for major issues like a flight control failure, like a fly away, inflight fire, aircraft collision, release of a propeller blade, or over $25,000 in damage to objects other than the aircraft. Serious injury includes things like hospitalization over 48 hours, broken bones, severe bleeding, internal organ damage, or major burns.
Data Resources
Reports
Log File Overview
Background
The incident involving the Believer happened on February 14th, 2026. The flight crew was Anestis Tsagris (PIC), Ryan Shurtleff (Aircraft Launcher), Trigg Strawhorn (GCS), Erik Krellner (VO). The flight took place at the ACRE Research Trailer. Located northeast of Purdues campus in West Lafayette, Indiana. The nature of the crash happened on takeoff with the believer, since this platform has to be hand launched, improver launching technique lead to this crash.
Figure 1: Location of ACRE Facility
The platform involved was the MFE Believer, the believer is flown with a DATX controller, and mainly uses a software called Ground Control on an external PC or laptop to monitor systems on the believer. This stores all the data collected from the believer, like attitude, angle of attack, all of the key data components about the flight.
The BIN file is the raw flight log recorded directly by the drone’s flight controller during the mission. It contains detailed sensor data, GPS information, and autopilot commands, and it must be opened in ground control or log analysis software to be viewed. The txt file is a readable version of the flight log that has been converted into text format. It allows the flight data, such as altitude, speed, and attitude, to be easily viewed and analyzed in programs like Excel. The json file stores the flight data in a structured format that can be used by software programs for analysis. This format makes it easier to organize, sort, and process the data for reports or visualizations.
Looking at the BIN file in UAV Log Viewer, the incident occurs when the angle of attack starts at approx 30 degrees, which is the accepted launch angle for the Believer, then during the hand launch, the angle of attack and pitch of the aircraft immediately point downwards to about -80 degrees, mean the aircraft was essentially pointing straight downward. Looking at the video attached on the launch, the launcher seemed to have launched the aircraft incorrectly, causing the Believer to nose dive back to the ground.
The main cause of this incident was a improper launch, the launcher pushed the aft of the aircraft upwards, causing it to nose dive into the ground on launch. An oversight that lead to this incident is potentially improper training on launching the aircraft. Like mentioned above, pushing the aft of the aircraft too far in the air, combined with full power on takeoff that pushed the nose down and could not be saved.
Figure 2: AOA vs Pitch on MFE Believer
The sequence that lead to the crash starts with the launch, like mentioned multiple times, an improper launch is ultimately what lead to this incident. This graph above shows the pitch angle and angle of attack as the launch happened. The pitch is a little low for launch, it should be closer to 30-40 degrees. As soon as the launcher attempted to launch the aircraft, the pitch and angle of attack shoot down to -80 degrees, meaning that the aircraft pitched down pretty much in an instant.
Figure 3: Picture of Aft of Aircraft on Launch
The image above shows the instant the the launch all went wrong, the aft of the aircraft being higher which lead to the accident. The main priority of launching the believer aircraft is to maintain proper launch angle, while giving a boost to the aircraft to help start the flight. The video expresses that Ryan could have been more focused on putting more force to make sure it had enough speed. These aircrafts have much bigger motors than the believer specs require, so launch angle seems more of a priority than giving in enough force to make sure it has a successful takeoff.
Right after the crash, the first priority is safety. Looking at the lecture slides, the team must check the location of the UAS and make sure no people or property are in danger. Hazards like LiPo battery fires or spinning propellers must be handled immediately. Photos should be taken to document everything, and 911 should be called if needed. The batteries should be removed and contained safely. After that, the aircraft is recovered and inspected. All broken pieces should be collected, and flight logs should be retrieved if possible. This helps preserve evidence and understand what caused the crash.
Crashes must be reported to several groups:
After the crash, there could be a handful of impacts and potential follow up actions. The insurance company should be contacted immediately which it was in this scenario. Insurance will do their standard process, needing photos, flight logs, and reports. Since this accident was pretty severe for the drone, lots of maintenance had to be done to the nose of the aircraft to get it repaired. After this incident, a good policy change could be taking more time to make sure the launchers of the believer have lots of practice on launching this drone properly. The goal should always be to prevent the same incident from happening again.
Like mentioned before, the main thing that lead to this crash was improper launch technique. Purdue dispatch could have the flight team demonstrate all key aspects of flying the believer, making sure they have proper connection from the GCS to the drone. The believer system is a more complex system, it has a lot more moving parts, so making sure all systems are working properly before they go out and fly their mission. Especially being the launcher, this is probably the most overlooked aspect of flying the believer. if the launch doesn’t go as intended, then it will be a very short mission back to dispatch. Dispatch could have the launcher walk through how they are going to launch the drone, and then dispatch could provide feedback and critique their launching techniques.
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