Hi! Just wanted to share my experience in case someone else has had something similar happen to them. Last Sunday, I had ideal conditions with no wind up to 1000 ft, and beautiful clear skies for a 6:56AM sunrise flight in Newport Beach, California. I got a LAANC authorization to fly up to 100ft, and set off on a beautiful flight. Flew several passes along the bay (some footage included below) and the aircraft was performing perfectly. When I was down to about 40% battery, I took the aircraft out to fly a long shot along the jetty back to me. The mini was around 3000’ away, and while I was setting up the shot, it started moving on its own - it began with it drifting to the right about a hundred feet, followed by a descent that could not be arrested. No warnings or any other alerts on the screen. I started to try to come back, and the battery indicated 38%. On Sport mode and full throttle I was getting no forward motion, only sideways drift. There was absolutely no wind, and the drone was only about 30 ft high. At that point my main objective became to keep it over the narrow jetty as I battled with trying to get forward speed. The top speed I ever saw was about 7 mph. Then the drone started descending aggressively on its own as if it were in landing mode, however this was not announced in DJI Fly. Half the way on my journey back I got a low voltage warning, with the battery at 31%! I realized at that point that the drone just did not have enough voltage to fly at full throttle, and realized I was screwed! I tried to gain as much altitude as possible within my 100 ft ATC clearance, while I considered my options: An emergency landing over the jetty, or getting just low enough over the jetty to be able to track it accurately and trying to fly back following it. I settled on the second option. Several times the drone would drift, experience interference, descend on its own (at one point down to -3.7 feet!). I finally made it over the beach, when from 25 feet, it started an uncontrolled descent and finally pancaked onto the sand at a fairly high rate of descent. It still had about 20% battery left. A message was displayed "Aircraft Impact Detected"
Analysis on Airdata doesn't show an explanation of what may have caused the behavior. No errors or warnings. By the time the aircraft plummeted to the ground it was flying over land, so the "flying over water" canned explanation doesn't have a lot of traction for me.
I submitted the data to DJI for analysis so they are aware of this incident and hoping they have some insight.
Thanks!
Analysis on Airdata doesn't show an explanation of what may have caused the behavior. No errors or warnings. By the time the aircraft plummeted to the ground it was flying over land, so the "flying over water" canned explanation doesn't have a lot of traction for me.
I submitted the data to DJI for analysis so they are aware of this incident and hoping they have some insight.
Thanks!