Air 2S found on the ground crashed.

[TomKennelly]

I have uploaded the txt file and have looked at the resultant CSV file in Excel and don't know what went wrong.
I found the drone on the ground exactly where it should have been but 100 ft higher. Two of the arms are broken off and the camera is dislodged.

Can I get some expert analysis for my Air 2S crash?

 

[GFields]

Upload and view DJI Phantom, Mavic,light logs online

www.phantomhelp.com

Come back here and post the URL. Some of the experts will look at it and offer information

 

[TomKennelly]

Here is the URL - DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[GFields]

Here is the CSV file

There is no link or file that I can see

 

[TomKennelly]

There is no link or file that I can see

Yeah, the URL is above. I tried to post the CSV file but CSV is not an allowable file type to upload to the forum so I went back and put in the proper URL. Sorry.

Or, here it is: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[FLDave]

What you do for the flight? Where was it going?
How can it be where it was supposed to be except 100 feet higher unless it was up in a tree.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I found the drone on the ground exactly where it should have been but 100 ft higher.

What precisely do you mean by that?
As far as I can see the area is more or less flat and the drone was probably around 100ft above the ground, are there trees that tall there?
Was the battery in the drone?
If you had VLOS on the drone what did you see?
Ditto if you were looking at the screen?
It seems you were not recording video but did you by any chance have a screen capture running on the phone?
The drone was going fairly fast and if it had caught a tree top I would have expected to see some significant changes in the drone's pitch, roll and yaw but there isn't, the log just stops with the reported angles similar to those in the last few second of the flight.
This leads me to wonder if the battery came out or disconnected from the drone?

 

[TomKennelly]

What precisely do you mean by that?
As far as I can see the area is more or less flat and the drone was probably around 100ft above the ground, are there trees that tall there?
Was the battery in the drone?
If you had VLOS on the drone what did you see?
Ditto if you were looking at the screen?
It seems you were not recording video but did you by any chance have a screen capture running on the phone?
The drone was going fairly fast and if it had caught a tree top I would have expected to see some significant changes in the drone's pitch, roll and yaw but there isn't, the log just stops with the reported angles similar to those in the last few second of the flight.
This leads me to wonder if the battery came out or disconnected from the drone?

I was flying over a drainage ditch that is being reworked. I had just finished looking at the project and was rotating the drone maybe 180 degrees (i.e, left stick fully right) to fly up the ditch. Once I stopped the rotation with the drone pointed mainly west I pushed the right stick fully forward and it moved a bit when I lost contact with the drone.
I was not videoing or taking photos at the time. I do have the short snippet of video that was in the findUAV folder and I don't see anything of significance. Want to see it?
I was looking at my screen when I lost contact because I was puzzled that I lost contact so close to the controller. To no avail I hit RTH and did not get the expected beeping sound from the controller.
While lacking the experience to interpret the flight recorder data I too was puzzled about the lack of communication during the fall from around 100 ft.
Lastly, the battery was on the ground next to the drone. Interestingly, the battery was within a foot of the drone on the ground AND the drone was lying on the ground battery side down. Since I was not doing any maneuvers and the drone was level, except for the start of the westward acceleration, I cannot imagine how the battery could have come loose.

 

[FLDave]

For RTH on the controller you need to HOLD RTH button until confirmation; simply hitting it is not enough. On the fly app it's tap the screen button. Which did you use?

 

[ifr]

Just curious if the battery was fully seated?

 

[mavictk]

For RTH on the controller you need to HOLD RTH button until confirmation; simply hitting it is not enough. On the fly app it's tap the screen button. Which did you use?

Yeah, I pressed and held it. RTH is my preferred method for bringing the drone back. When I started RTH this time I was only getting one beep instead of the usual two so I knew something was wrong.

 

[mavictk]

Just curious if the battery was fully seated?

It was a calm level flight so gravity ….. I wish I knew for certain.

 

[MS Coast]

Here's a Google street view screen capture looking west in the area where the area where the last portion of the flight took place. Might a 20 mph impact with one of those trees in the distance been the cause of the crash?

 

[FLDave]

It's odd that the portion of the flight log ends with no comments. Apparently there was no RTH signal received by the drone. Unless you had obstacle avoidance turned off it would not just fly into a tree with no warning recorded.
The abrupt stop of the log would most likely be electrical failure.
Did you analyze the flight log on AirData to look for electrical and battery information?
This is an Air 2s so the battery snaps in from the top. Even if loose it wouldn't just fall out in flight. However if the battery were no seated properly it might lift up a little so electrical contact would be lost and the drone just fall to ground. with log information.
Based on your visual contact while flying, what do you think happened?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

that I lost contact so close to the controller. To no avail I hit RTH and did not g

When the drone loses connection (controller lights should flash simultaneously), if indeed it has lost connection as opposed to losing video etc., then pressing RTH does nothing. There is no connection via which to transmit the command.
Secondly the failsafe action ( what the drone does if there IS a disconnection) was Go Home (see column DL? in the csv that you can download from the Phantomhelp webpage) so, if the drone had been airborne it would, after the approriate delay, have automatically started an RTH.
Check the failsafe RTH section in the manual for the delay and the drone's precise behaviour, these vary from model to model.
Thirdly pressing the RTH button after a real disconnection could/would cancel the RTH if the drone and controller had reconnected before you pressed the button.
Nothing is implied by "real disconnection", I am just differentiating between a real disconnection and a loss of video signal or controller to phone disconnection.
I know it's counterintuitive but the best thing to do is arguably nothing or, if you are uncertain as to the RTH status, switch the controller off.

The above said, I think you drone was probably on its way down or already on the ground by the time you pressed teh RTH button.

"Might a 20 mph impact with one of those trees in the distance been the cause of the crash?"
Oh yes.
Hence some of my comments in post #7.
I would be worth looking the drone over very carefully to see if you can find bark or leaf residue.

 

[mavictk]

Here's a Google street view screen capture looking west in the area where the area where the last portion of the flight took place. Might a 20 mph impact with one of those trees in the distance been the cause of the crash?

View attachment 151638

I fly here once a week and I have measured the tree tops at 80 feet and I fly at 100 feet. I would have thought that I would have gotten some descent data from a tree top to the ground and did not.

 

[mavictk]

It's odd that the portion of the flight log ends with no comments. Apparently there was no RTH signal received by the drone. Unless you had obstacle avoidance turned off it would not just fly into a tree with no warning recorded.
The abrupt stop of the log would most likely be electrical failure.
Did you analyze the flight log on AirData to look for electrical and battery information?
This is an Air 2s so the battery snaps in from the top. Even if loose it wouldn't just fall out in flight. However if the battery were no seated properly it might lift up a little so electrical contact would be lost and the drone just fall to ground. with log information.
Based on your visual contact while flying, what do you think happened?

At the time of the failure I was looking at the screen and not the drone. I admit to focusing on RTH and even powered the controller off and on in an attempt to reconnect. Looking upward was delayed.

I did not analyze on Airdata. I will have to try that approach next.

I think electrical failure but only have limited experience with this type of analysis. Nearly immediately after the video connection loss I tried RTH and only got the single beeps rather than the double beeps indicating to me the drone was not receiving RTH.

 

[MS Coast]

I fly here once a week and I have measured the tree tops at 80 feet and I fly at 100 feet. I would have thought that I would have gotten some descent data from a tree top to the ground and did not.

If the impact dislodged the battery, there would have been no further information recorded or sent.

Have a close look at the leading edges of the props. That might provide a clue.

Did the drone fall onto a hard surface?

(There's probably not much elevation difference there, so this probably isn't significant, but I'll toss it out for other situations. Altitudes displayed are above the takeoff point. So if you take off from a high location and measure the tree height at 80' and then took off from a location 10' lower, 90' indicated altitude would put you in the treetops.)

 

[mavictk]

If the impact dislodged the battery, there would have been no further information recorded or sent.

Have a close look at the leading edges of the props. That might provide a clue.

Did the drone fall onto a hard surface?

Hard surface, yes, hard packed dirt being used as a roadway for construction.
One of the props was snapped in half.

 

[mavictk]

At the time of the failure I was looking at the screen and not the drone. I admit to focusing on RTH and even powered the controller off and on in an attempt to reconnect. Looking upward was delayed.

I did not analyze on Airdata. I will have to try that approach next.

I think electrical failure but only have limited experience with this type of analysis. Nearly immediately after the video connection loss I tried RTH and only got the single beeps rather than the double beeps indicating to me the drone was not receiving RTH.

According to the Airdata site the Air 2S is not supported. :-(