Software Errors Caused Kitty Hawk's Heaviside Prototype to Crash Land
NTSB accident reported found that software script used during battery recharging of the Heaviside electric aircraft interfered with flight controls during a test flight.
An accident last year in which Kitty Hawk’s Heaviside eVTOL prototype aircraft was badly damaged was caused by a software timing error, according to an investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. A report published on March 27 concluded that an operator error resulted in a battery charging script not being correctly terminated before the unmanned electric aircraft took off for a test flight on Oct. 17, 2019.
About 10 minutes into the test flight in Tres Pinos, California, a ground-station operator informed the pilot in command that multiple flight computer limits had been exceeded. The pilot took manual control of the aircraft, which was then in conventional wing-borne horizontal flight, in order to land it.
