Drone flew 600m away from me - out of my control!

[Drones.n.Pixels]

We have all been there : The learning curve

Without seeing the Data Sheets it appears your Drone lost signal when you went over the trees as you Lost Visual Line of sight something that is extremely important in keeping the signal connected .

When that happens over the trees the best thing to do is fly the drone up high in the sky to try to reconnect.

When the GPS is completely lost the Drone goes into Atti Mode which means that you have lost the help of the GPS and you our now flying in Somewhat Manually. which also means the wind has some control if you do not .

There is no harm in notifying DJI but this is Pilot Error.

VLOS plays a critical role in keeping the drone connected to the GPS to allow it to use its safety features..

DJI will ask you for the data and the video recorded on the Cashe so be prepared and if they find some errors in the Atti Mode you might be ok or they find some magentic interference also which can cause a fly away.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic in the Rain.
Coal

Doesn't Mavic Mini have in-flight GPS? If it does, VLOS (or losing it) has nothing to do with loss of GPS. this might be pilot error (most fly-aways actually are), but without logs it's impossible to say.
If the drone lost GPS, if flew with the wind and landed when battery wend down to critical level. Without GPS it cannot come back. Unfortunately loss o GPS can happen without failure of the actual equipment.
To save the drone, pilot must be able to land it safely where it can be found (if compass is working this can be done using the map) or brought back manually in ATTI mode (also using the map).
It's scary and not easy (happened to me with my MP), especially if you don't see the drone and don't trust the controls any more.

 

[Prismatic]

Doesn't Mavic Mini have in-flight GPS? If it does, VLOS (or losing it) has nothing to do with loss of GPS. this might be pilot error (most fly-aways actually are), but without logs it's impossible to say.
If the drone lost GPS, if flew with the wind and landed when battery wend down to critical level. Without GPS it cannot come back. Unfortunately loss o GPS can happen without failure of the actual equipment.
To save the drone, pilot must be able to land it safely where it can be found (if compass is working this can be done using the map) or brought back manually in ATTI mode (also using the map).
It's scary and not easy (happened to me with my MP), especially if you don't see the drone and don't trust the controls any more.

You should have finished reading the thread, particularly the log file analysis in this post., which would have been impossible but for the unique skills of @sar104.

Synopsis: The drone never lost GPS. At a high altitude in considerable wind, RTH was inadvertently cancelled. The drone drifted downwind until the link was lost. The wind made failsafe RTH futile, and it continued drifting away. While it probably made landfall across the loch, the OP does not live nearby; recovery is conceivable, but not likely.

 

[SamCrouch]

Is this the actual flight location @SamCrouch ??
If you weren't on holiday up there, it is probably a bit far north for you !

Hi, yep that is the exact location!

 

[SamCrouch]

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in replying. Turns out that the email notifications from this thread go into my Junk email.

So, I have had a reply from DJI (finally), putting it down as my fault :-(

Below is a copy of what they replied to me......

1 The aircraft was piloted under GPS mode. 2 T=01:04, h=27.8m, d=129.8m, the app warned that there was high wind. 3 T=12:38, h=69.5m, d=40.1m, there was no pilot's input but the aircraft tilted 20.2 degrees backwards and flew forwards in 2.5m/s, which indicated that there was high wind affecting the aircraft, the wind was from Southwest. 4 The aircraft could not return home normally as it was affected by the high wind, and it consumed much more battery to resist the wind. 5 T=13:41, h=70.5m, d=397.0m, the RTH was triggered by the pilot via RC. 6 T=15:45, h=71.7m, d=651.9m, battery 29%, the app record ended. According to the analysis, the incident was caused by the improper flight environment. Please do not fly in strong-wind condition. If you could not recover the product and consider to purchase another one, we can offer you a 15% off discount for Mavic mini without the charger and remote controller. Please kindly send us the following information if you would like to accept the offer: Shipping address: Contact name: Phone number:

How does this sound to everyone? Fair? There certainly was wind on that day, but I have flown the drone in far stronger winds. My main concern was that I lost signal with the drone before, the home point was on the left hand side of the loch, where most of the flight path is (above the ground as opposed to the Loch).

One question that leaves me confused it, on point 6 above it states that the 'app record ended', is that because it plummeted into the water (yet the heigh of the drone at this point was 71.7m??) and there was still 29% battery. Confusing.

Any idea what the cost of the mini is without the charger and controller like they are suggesting?
Thanks
Sam

 

[SamCrouch]

@SamCrouch that gives some hope . . . it seems more than likely it would have 99.9% made landfall, a much better option than the loch bed.
It is a long shot, but if you're in a position to go back and try a search radiating out from that yellow pin, well, you might get lucky.
I guess the weather now is the issue !!

Living on the South Coast of England and losing the drone in the North of the Scotland is also a huge issue haha. I have just posted the updated from DJI on here too :-(

 

[sar104]

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in replying. Turns out that the email notifications from this thread go into my Junk email.

So, I have had a reply from DJI (finally), putting it down as my fault :-(

Below is a copy of what they replied to me......

1 The aircraft was piloted under GPS mode. 2 T=01:04, h=27.8m, d=129.8m, the app warned that there was high wind. 3 T=12:38, h=69.5m, d=40.1m, there was no pilot's input but the aircraft tilted 20.2 degrees backwards and flew forwards in 2.5m/s, which indicated that there was high wind affecting the aircraft, the wind was from Southwest. 4 The aircraft could not return home normally as it was affected by the high wind, and it consumed much more battery to resist the wind. 5 T=13:41, h=70.5m, d=397.0m, the RTH was triggered by the pilot via RC. 6 T=15:45, h=71.7m, d=651.9m, battery 29%, the app record ended. According to the analysis, the incident was caused by the improper flight environment. Please do not fly in strong-wind condition. If you could not recover the product and consider to purchase another one, we can offer you a 15% off discount for Mavic mini without the charger and remote controller. Please kindly send us the following information if you would like to accept the offer: Shipping address: Contact name: Phone number:

How does this sound to everyone? Fair? There certainly was wind on that day, but I have flown the drone in far stronger winds. My main concern was that I lost signal with the drone before, the home point was on the left hand side of the loch, where most of the flight path is (above the ground as opposed to the Loch).

One question that leaves me confused it, on point 6 above it states that the 'app record ended', is that because it plummeted into the water (yet the heigh of the drone at this point was 71.7m??) and there was still 29% battery. Confusing.

Any idea what the cost of the mini is without the charger and controller like they are suggesting?
Thanks
Sam

DJI's summary is basically correct. You lost the aircraft because the wind was too strong for it to return home in RTH mode. Sport mode might have helped. The app record ended because the downlink was lost. As I pointed out in post #38 it likely drifted a considerable distance after that, and autolanded when the battery reached the smart battery autoland level. I don't understand your question regarding the home point.

 

[SamCrouch]

DJI's summary is basically correct. You lost the aircraft because the wind was too strong for it to return home in RTH mode. Sport mode might have helped. The app record ended because the downlink was lost. As I pointed out in post #38 it likely drifted a considerable distance after that, and autolanded when the battery reached the smart battery autoland level. I don't understand your question regarding the home point.

Thank you.
Is is more likely that the drone drifted over the the Loch as opposed to landing in it then? 600m isn't too far for the signal to be lost though is it as I thought the drone was much further than that.
Regrading the homepoint, someone in this thread mentioned whether I had the home point set or not, was just stating that I did .

 

[sar104]

Thank you.
Is is more likely that the drone drifted over the the Loch as opposed to landing in it then? 600m isn't too far for the signal to be lost though is it as I thought the drone was much further than that.
Regrading the homepoint, someone in this thread mentioned whether I had the home point set or not, was just stating that I did .

Post #38 shows the estimate of where it landed - in the vicinity of the yellow pin. I didn't realize that you hadn't seen that. The home point was correctly set.

 

[Drones.n.Pixels]

You should have finished reading the thread, particularly the log file analysis in this post., which would have been impossible but for the unique skills of @sar104.

Synopsis: The drone never lost GPS. At a high altitude in considerable wind, RTH was inadvertently cancelled. The drone drifted downwind until the link was lost. The wind made failsafe RTH futile, and it continued drifting away. While it probably made landfall across the loch, the OP does not live nearby; recovery is conceivable, but not likely.

Ok, I didn't see logs, I actually think I commented before logs were posted, but I also thought that issue was not the GPS loss but something else ( cancelling RTH and subsequent loss of control fits well).

 

[sar104]

Ok, I didn't see logs, I actually think I commented before logs were posted, but I also thought that issue was not the GPS loss but something else ( cancelling RTH and subsequent loss of control fits well).

The log was posted in post #13. The problem was caused by wind speeds higher than the aircraft could handle.

 

[Drones.n.Pixels]

The log was posted in post #13. The problem was caused by wind speeds higher than the aircraft could handle.

Yes, you are right, probably on different page and I missed jt