How I Lost My Mavic 2 Zoom

[Ian in London]

Thanks for taking the time to share your pain, Wellsi. Unfortunately, I could not afford to replace my Mavic 2 Zoom with another one, so I got a brand new Mavic Pro at almost half price. It's a great little machine - but without the obstacle avoidance sensors of the Mavic 2. I'm also looking into the "Terrain Follow" flight mode and wondering if it would "rise to the occasion" (maintain the same altitude above ground) if I were flying the drone uphill but not following anything.

btw, I would LOVE to be able to fly my drone over the white cliffs of Dover!

My advice would very much be to not rely on any of the automated assitance modes like terrain mode and also not rely on the sensors fully either. I think most flyers on here would accept that power lines, tree twigs or general failure to properly work renders these modes and sensors way below 100% reliable... The safest way to avoid crashing is to use VLOS along with the camera view on your phone. And a friend alongside you as aspotter.

Cheers
Ian

 

[hermitdog]

to DanMan32: You're right to say "AC reached its altitude limit, or obstacle was enough where avoidance couldn't figure a way out, so it hovered until battery died." All of the above. According to the flight path on the map, the drone attempted a beeline back to the homepoint after losing the RC signal. After coming 900 feet back in a straight line, it encountered an obstacle, presumably a tree on the far side of the ridge (in the photo) - and hovered there until the battery died, since it was registering "maximum altitude reached." It did not crash until it attempted a soft landing after reaching critical battery.

 

[jason38]

Try to recover it!! I lost my MP last year, and, I finaly recovered it after 6months!!
It was in the middle of a 250-300meters Cliff, and I managed to find it after several trials , with ropes and other climbing equipment...
BTW, I bought another MP since I lost it, and it helped me to find a safe way to reach the crashed MP!!
Try, it worth it!

 

[hermitdog]

The closest my friend (in his mid-30s) and I (past my mid-70s) could get to where the Mavic 2 had gone down was 1 1/2 miles. There simply were no roads or paths nearer to the site. I'm glad you were successful, but this ol' bod is no longer up for "several trials, with ropes and other climbing equipment..." -- especially since even getting to the site would require trekking more than a mile through dense forest, cliffs, and across a deep creek. I am glad your perseverance paid off, though.

 

[jason38]

The closest my friend (in his mid-30s) and I (past my mid-70s) could get to where the Mavic 2 had gone down was 1 1/2 miles. There simply were no roads or paths nearer to the site. I'm glad you were successful, but this ol' bod is no longer up for "several trials, with ropes and other climbing equipment..." -- especially since even getting to the site would require trekking more than a mile through dense forest, cliffs, and across a deep creek. I am glad your perseverance paid off, though.

OK I understand.
I took some pleasure trying to recover it because I like hikes and climbing ...
But this "mission" makes me hate the place because I went there soooooo many times before recovering it ahahah
But the main goal for me.was to remove my destroyed mavic from there to prevent any polution....
Sad it happened to you, and hope you'll get more lucky with your new mavic pro, which is wonderful!

 

[Photo Beaty]

You can increase the maximum altitude while in flight. I have had to do this two times. Each time I had a spotter with excellent hearing and sight and I was not near an airport.

I had a flight similar to yours and ended up behind a cliff while flying the Black Hole in White canyon in Southeastern Utah. The weird thing was that I had signal until I told it to return home and the signal was then lost. The distance did not change and the battery level stayed the same for what seemed like more than a minute. Then it appeared out of the blue and established signal again. I decided that all the time I was sweating, wondering what was happening, the bird was heading back to me without sending me any information for a time.

 

[DanMan32]

The problem is though, he lost signal so he couldn't change his settings on the fly.

While waiting to get my M2Z back from DJI, I flew my P3. I almost forgot it has a habit of losing all downlink but still have uplink. It won't trigger RTH in that situation. After a minute of no signal return, I just raised altitude and got the signal back.

The first time my P3 lost downlink but not uplink, I waited and sweated for 4 minutes, thinking it crashed. Turned out it returned due to low battery.
Comparing tablet and AC logs confirmed it still had uplink.

 

[Gabe]

People get confused by the expression Line of Sight.
The FAA talks about VLOS (Visual Line of Sight) meaning keep your drone in visual range
LOS is a different kind of law.
It's a law of physics that radio signals won't travel through mountains.
Your drone could be 10 miles out and still be in LOS but it might be out of VLOS at 900 ft.

Exactly - I don’t see my drone after a few hundred feet

 

[dfb]

Thanks for taking the time to share your pain, Wellsi. Unfortunately, I could not afford to replace my Mavic 2 Zoom with another one, so I got a brand new Mavic Pro at almost half price. It's a great little machine - but without the obstacle avoidance sensors of the Mavic 2. I'm also looking into the "Terrain Follow" flight mode and wondering if it would "rise to the occasion" (maintain the same altitude above ground) if I were flying the drone uphill but not following anything.

btw, I would LOVE to be able to fly my drone over the white cliffs of Dover!

Change your max altitude to 500 meters. I fly in the mountains and it is surprising how fast the terrain rises going up hill. This means YOU must monitor the altitude above ground of the aircraft to maintain the 400 foot ceiling. I have been 1500 feet above takeoff, yet flying only 100 feet above the terrain. Sometimes the only way to do that is check the camera looking down and judge by the scale of known objects, like a road.

 

[KostasNK]

That's why I removed the 400max altitude setting when I bought my mavic pro. If I have to fly behind objects(buildings, mountains etc)that could block my signal I put the setting of returning to home when a signal loss occurs and put around 500feet above the object just to be on the safe side...It's always useful to have a good laser range finder and scan the object to measure the height so you can dial in a height that will clear the object you are flying behind...

 

[Imtnbike]

From the looks of it you may have close access by water route. Can you get a small boat / canoe / kayak near the crash site and have someone go in that route? Just pains me to hear of a drone loss and you have a great scope of where it might be!

 

[Rusty in Bend]

So reading this forms a key question in my mind. I have my max-altitude set at the 400-foot limit. Should I say "Rules be damned" and set it much higher to avoid this error, and just make sure when I'm manually controlling my drone that I stay below 400 feet? I mean, RTH is usually the result of a loss of signal or some other issue that I wouldn't reasonably expect. If max flight height isn't restricted systemically, but rather managed during flight ... is that a way to prevent this from ever happening to me?

I'm a "techno-geek" and one of the teams I manage does "Closed Loop Corrective Action work. Is "Reset Max Height to, say, 800 feet" the answer here?

Thoughts?

 

[worldtraveller]

I usually see the video signal starting to break up....a good sign that I am about to lose radio signals from the drone. Once the video signal starts to break up or become pixelated, it is time to turn around.

Jerry

 

[clydesur]

Ouch. That's painful to read. I see so many "tree crashes" ... that I've tended to stay either well above, or away from forests. And I never take off from a location that isn't clear enough to allow for an easy RTH and/or visual landing. Stories like this reinforce my "Crashadroneaphobia".

Crashadroneaphobia - Love it...

 

[Kiddthewarrior]

Make sure you call around and get Drone insurance for your next one. I pay $60 a year thru State Farm for my 2Zoom

One week ago today, on October 13th, I flew into this gulch called "Buzzard's Roost." A friend took this photo of the ravine with his drone - but he was smarter than I and did not attempt to fly as far into the gulch as I did. I have added text and arrows to his photo to explain what happened.
View attachment 50875

 

[Flynz]

Thanks for sharing. The 400 ft limit is above ground level so Max altitude and RTH altitude needs to be set to 400 ft above the highest point on the journey, mit the Home point.
I had a similar scare with the wrong settings, dense bush and ridges around me. Fortunately I had signal and could see the coast. I flew out of the hills and back. Next flight near bush I allowed plenty of altitude.
Go well with the new Mavic!

 

[cayrick]

You should have your gps flight path stored. Get a couple of kids and offer a reward that gives them the incentive to spend a couple of hours in the bush. I fly model planes and if one goes rogue that is what some pilots do.

 

[Scooterx64]

My new rules:
1. Never fly the Mavic anyplace I am not willing to go to recover it.
2. Never fly the Mavic anyplace I am not willing to accept that it is lost forever.

It is so cool to use the Mavic to see things you can't otherwise view so I suspect that I will always intend to follow rule #1 but inevitably I will have to invoke rule #2 someday

 

[tattchua]

being new to drones, i must overcome the fear of trust your equipment. apart from pilot error, everything else should be ok...otherwise i wont be venturing....thanks hermit dog, another reminder.

 

[Kevin Cooke]

I'm pretty new to drone flying, but I thought 400 feet was the maximum altitude anywhere in America. .

400 feet Above Ground Level is the law NOT 400 feet above your take off point which is what the Mavic will measure and report to you. So next time you are flying in mountainous area and the drone encounters a cliff, hill etc go into your settings and reset the max altitude enough to clear the obstacle.
Note the Max setting on the Mavic 2 is 500 meters or 1,640 ft Remember to decrease your altitude as you move away from the hill, cliff, whatever.

PS I'm patiently waiting for DJI to come out with a radar altimeter.