Drone crashed in the Hudson River after battery died

[chris765_2000]

I flew my drone approximately 21,000 feet across the Hudson and received a warning that I needed to return home immediately so as to have enough battery life to make it back. My battery was at 40% and I spent at least another minute flying around the shoreline before returning. Long story short, my battery died 1,000 feet from shore and the drone is now at the bottom of the Hudson. I had increased the speed to full throttle on the way back and wonder if I should have let the drone fly itself back. After this experience I will never fly the drone more than 2.5 miles as there are too many factors I suspect the drone can't compute such as the amount of wind. Lesson learned the hard way. I'm sharing this so that someone else doesn't need to learn the hard way.

 

[WizDrone]

Sorry about your loss Chris. Thanks for the advice

 

[Top Hat]

Sorry about your loss Chris. Thanks for the advice

+1

 

[TTFullTimer]

The operative words. "I spent another minute flying around" And "I increased the speed to full throttle" Had you read the leaderboard thread you would know that full throttle does not yield best distance per percent of battery used. Four miles is a long way off.

 

[Path Finder]

Sorry for your loss. . .

Have you looked into a replacement yet?
(On the "bright side", Mavic alone will cost less then when you bought everything!)

Would have been nice to have a safety spot to land on the far side of your flight "just in case". I'll try to recall that for any "risk flights" I might make someday. . .

 

[chris765_2000]

Sorry for your loss. . .

Have you looked into a replacement yet?
(On the "bright side", Mavic alone will cost less then when you bought everything!)

Would have been nice to have a safety spot to land on the far side of your flight "just in case". I'll try to recall that for any "risk flights" I might make someday. . .

The aircraft alone cost $750. I wish I had landed the drone on the other side. I had never thought for one second that I didn't have enough battery life to make it back. I think that one minute of flying after receiving the warning made all the difference as that is about how long it would have taken to fly 1,000 feet further. I've been flying drones for a few years now and am lucky this is my only loss.

 

[Lou]

I'll bet Capt. Sully would have made it....

 

[Stride8]

I'll bet Capt. Sully would have made it....

Knew this was coming

 

[Stride8]

Man.. the lesson learned is that you must obey all the warnings especially over water. I saw a video of a guy with a P4P and he ignored the RTH and had to land 3000 feet from his launch point. Lucky for him, there was a sand barge to land on

 

[Knight Hawk]

I'll bet Capt. Sully would have made it....

[emoji15][emoji848][emoji67]‍[emoji574]️[emoji574]️[emoji1305][emoji1417]