Critical low battery landing almost cost me my Mavic 2 Pro!!

khabbi · May 4, 2020

I suppose it's my fault. Well, I know it is.

. In the several years I've been flying my drones, I've never gone into Critical battery % so I didn't know what to do when it just decided to start landing in a really, really bad place (over a tree). Totally caught me off guard also.

Long story short, I took off about 150 yards away from a position that I wanted to do a hyperlapse and get a good amount of photos over as much time as I could. Flew right to the position and quickly started. Since I was so close to my homepoint, I ignored the first battery warning and kept going. As it hit the second warning, it stopped shooting the hyperlapse and started heading my way.. well at about 30 yards from me it went into critical landing and since I didn't know what to do (Had never had this happen and didn't do my research) it started coming down by itself into some high trees and I lost sight of it. Battery was at 9% and it was literally 10 seconds from the homepoint! UGH!! Down into the trees.

Not sure how I saved it (or it managed to save itself miraculously) but it was able to maneuver down through the branches and I ran over to see my drone sitting in the proper landing position (much, much relief!). A quick inspection showed the two outside propellers had some damage and the lens cover edge had some surface damage, but all is good! Both outside propellers needed replaced and I'm back in business.

So the moral of the story- learn exactly what the battery bar is telling you and how to take control in a critical landing situation. I knew I would be in the 10% (or so) range when I got it back to land, didn't realize it would not just fly the extra 30 yards and instead dive towards the trees. I'm lucky it wasn't above water or worse.

So I've learned my lesson and I now know how to handle it if it ever happens again... but I won't be pushing the battery next time as I don't think it was worth it. I wish I would have had the incident on video, but the recording shut off when it stopped the hyperlapse and I didn't think to restart it (I usually do).

CraigObe · May 4, 2020

Wow lucky, and lesson learnt

Deleted member 94047 · May 4, 2020

That was a close call and I am glad you got your bird back. Would have been very painful to lose an AC like the M2P for a mistake as silly as this. Learning the behaviour of the AC in a low battery situation is absolutely crucial since we all push our drones to the limit at one point or another to get that extra bit of footage. Looks like you have learned your lesson and you will be a better pilot going forward. Just one thing though; you say

khabbi said:
I knew I would be in the 10% (or so) range when I got it back to land, didn't realize it would not just fly the extra 30 yards and instead dive towards the trees.

It is actually possible to control the AC even after the critical low battery threshold is reached and auto-landing kicks in. Just keep pushing the left stick up and apply the correct elivator input (right stick up or down depending on direction of travel). The moment you let go of the left stick, auto-landing will commence, so you have to keep fighting it. Here is a video that may help

Personally, I am not a big fan of the auto-land on critically low battery situation solution of DJI. I know it is meant to be a safe guard for the battery but for the life of me I can't see how risking the loss of an aircraft to protect a battery is going to work in my favour. So I decided to disable this feature entirely on my MA1 (using the parameters editing feature of the old version of DJI Assistant 2 that allows debugging) and have confirmed that the AC no longer enters into auto-landing mode when battery level is critically low. I am a very cautious flyer and I don't usually push my drone to its limits. But if/when I find myself in this scenario, I would rather the AC used every last drop of that battery to come home or get to a safe place than just land wherever it is.

Checki · May 4, 2020

It's not a big deal to push the stick a bit up and continue normal flight and landing procedure.
But of course if you don't know, you are surprised...

khabbi · May 4, 2020

Checki said:
It's not a big deal to push the stick a bit up and continue normal flight and landing procedure.
But of course if you don't know, you are surprised...

Exactly. When it kicked in, I was just trying to take control and when it appeared I couldn't do that through regular inputs on the sticks, I panicked. Of course now I know to just hold up on the stick and maneuver as I need to.

And you better believe I am grateful I didn't lose my bird over something like this!! Phew!!!

khabbi · May 4, 2020

This is the video EVERYONE should watch:

DougMcC · May 4, 2020

khabbi said:
This is the video EVERYONE should watch:

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I agree. That is a well done instructive video for ALL pilots. Glad I saw it. Thanks

jelarv · Dec 13, 2020

Does anyone know if the forced landing has changed in the latest firmware release? If my memory serves me correct, when I was flying my MP2 about a month ago, when it dropped below 10%, a large box popped up on my smart controller and said it was landing and there was no way to dismiss the message and it was taking up such a large portion of the screen I couldn't see where to land. Fortunately I was in my back yard and so it landed safely. If I'm correct, this is different than in the prior firmware where it allowed full control until about 0% at which point it forced the landing.