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Drone went rogue and crashed

dmcraanen

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Joined
Apr 29, 2018
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Age
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Hi guys! Going to try a few things but hoping you might have a few clues as to what happened

Problem?

Drone was hovering in mid air, then without me doing anything it flew off, accellerated insanely fast to 60+ mph, then descended and crashed.

Was able to turn drone and slow landing before it hit the ground. Was lucky it was very soft (grass in Shetland) so it looks fine and turns on as usual. App says ''ready to go''.

Haven't tried it again, but it was being funny yesterday too where it just suddenly moved 5 or so meters backwards before it stopped without me doing anything.

Was unit in a crash?
Yes, crashed from 80 or so feet into very soft grass. tried to get flight logs, but strangely enough there don't seem to be any after 14 July... although there is a DAT file available from the drone itself, and I have the drone flight path through the app, which I have attached a few images of (one with an error at the start, then one where you can see it starting to move without me doing anything, then one with the top speed it achieved during the incident). Confused.

2okLKWd.jpg

hBovsdj.jpg

XWglnIw.jpg



What have you tried so far?
Reinstalled the app, refreshed drone firmware. Will also calibrate IMU again as well as compass. Haven't had a chance to try that as I'm not near anywhere drone-suitable.

What device are you using ( iphone , ipad, Samsung , etc)?
Huawei P10 lite

What firmware are you running ( aircraft, remote controller)?
Whatever is the latest, according to my app...

What Go app version are you using?
Latest

Any modification? (if so what)
No

Did you change anything or install any apps? (if so what)
No

Do you have a video or pictures of the problem? (if so post link)

Yes, see above.
 
Last edited:
Your screens are showing no GPS. Also, I don't think the Air is capable of 60MPH. There should be logs, and those will be needed to assess what happened.
 
Your screens are showing no GPS. Also, I don't think the Air is capable of 60MPH. There should be logs, and those will be needed to assess what happened.

That's why I'm confused - air shouldn't be able to do that, and in my DJI flight log folder (when you connect phone to computer) there are no logs after 14 july (even though I did at least 10 flights since then). As to the No GPS bit - do you think it just lost its way / got confused?

edit: or did it maybe go into ATTI mode and was then swept away by the wind? Pretty strong winds here on Shetland.
 
If you had no GPS you would be in ATTI mode and it's difficult to control. Did you confirm you had adequate satellites when you took off? Without a log it's pretty hard to make educated guesses about what happened.

Had you taken off from that location before without incident? It looks like the crash did some damage, which DJI can fix... but assessing the cause is pretty hard without some data.

Sorry for your crash. In general, drone's don't have a mind of their own. It's either pilot error, or some outside force (magnetic interference) that is the culprit.
 
If you had no GPS you would be in ATTI mode and it's difficult to control. Did you confirm you had adequate satellites when you took off? Without a log it's pretty hard to make educated guesses about what happened.

Had you taken off from that location before without incident? It looks like the crash did some damage, which DJI can fix... but assessing the cause is pretty hard without some data.

Sorry for your crash. In general, drone's don't have a mind of their own. It's either pilot error, or some outside force (magnetic interference) that is the culprit.

Oooh look what I found after restarting the phone. We now have a flight log. Thanks @microlinux now we can go somewhere. I'm getting the idea it switched to ATTI mode and was blown away and I took that to mean it was crashing so I helped it go down in a bit of panic (it could've easily been blown into the sea).

Not sure where you got the idea it got damaged? I turned it on just now and looks fine. Put new props on just to make sure ^_^ It landed in very soft grass - if you stood on it you'd sink in about a foot it's that soft. Yay Shetland.

Never flew from here before, but flown at many remote places so figured this would be OK. Guess it wasn't.
 

Attachments

  • DJIFlightRecord_2018-07-26_[09-42-05]csv.zip
    16.9 KB · Views: 7
Was that Shetland Texas? I can't seem to find A968 on Google maps. I was looking for a possible source of interference.

Disregard, found it in Shetland UK. Looks like some major shipping channels nearby.
 
Was that Shetland Texas? I can't seem to find A968 on Google maps. I was looking for a possible source of interference.

No, the Shetland Islands, UK ;-) Really quite remote. There were a few power lines nearby....could that be it?
 
My mistake.. I think I confused your incident with another I had just finished reading. Apologies.


Oooh look what I found after restarting the phone. We now have a flight log. Thanks @microlinux now we can go somewhere. I'm getting the idea it switched to ATTI mode and was blown away and I took that to mean it was crashing so I helped it go down in a bit of panic (it could've easily been blown into the sea).

Not sure where you got the idea it got damaged? I turned it on just now and looks fine. Put new props on just to make sure ^_^ It landed in very soft grass - if you stood on it you'd sink in about a foot it's that soft. Yay Shetland.

Never flew from here before, but flown at many remote places so figured this would be OK. Guess it wasn't.
 
No, the Shetland Islands, UK ;-) Really quite remote. There were a few power lines nearby....could that be it?[/QUOT
I am not sure about the power lines. I guess if they were big enough they might give off enough RF to interfere. When I go near power lines while listening to AM radio it interferes.
 
Still some open questions about this. Did you confirm GPS coverage at takeoff? How many satellites? Had you taken off from this location before without incident?
 
Still some open questions about this. Did you confirm GPS coverage at takeoff? How many satellites? Had you taken off from this location before without incident?

Yup confirmed but only briefly so may have missed something there. Had flown earlier on Fair Isle and that was more remote so probably was a bit careless this time. 10 satellites I think. Never taken off from this location before.

Thanks for looking into it - appreciate it.
 
Yup confirmed but only briefly so may have missed something there. Had flown earlier on Fair Isle and that was more remote so probably was a bit careless this time. 10 satellites I think. Never taken off from this location before.

Thanks for looking into it - appreciate it.

The data from the flight will tell the tale.
 
It's odd data... you had no location information until after takeoff... also when it said you were at maximum altitude you were only a few feet up... so a lot of these numbers appear screwy to me... one of our experts will better be able to interpret this... but it looks like for awhile the drone had no idea where it was... altho it appeared to be in GPS mode.
 
It's odd data... you had no location information until after takeoff... also when it said you were at maximum altitude you were only a few feet up... so a lot of these numbers appear screwy to me... one of our experts will better be able to interpret this... but it looks like for awhile the drone had no idea where it was... altho it appeared to be in GPS mode.

Yup very strange. I'll wait for an expert to come along :) Had the max altitude bug before. That required a phone reset to fix - but I didn't do that this time as I actually missed the error until I looked at the log video :-/
 
So I took off too early and then the drone just went ''welp guess I'll speed up to 60mph and crash''?
Certainly not.

I haven't read the data, but the logic goes as follow:
IF no GPS data AND no Visual Position Data = no way to know for your drone where it is, so it cannot keep the position fixed. Under that circunstance, any wind will push the drone, as will push a floating balloon ar pretty much the speed of the wind. (ATTI mode)

for someone used to fly in GPS, flying in ATTI is VERY hard (for me anyways) as the air movements looks caotic (again for me at least).

Can't say for sure that is what happened to your drone, as I haven't read the data, but hope it helps
 
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