Fell out of sky, Mini2

[goldensky]

my first post here. was doing a pano today in the snowy woods of a gold mine town in Canada. I would say I was up about 140 feet, completed a 360 pan, then stopped. and all of a sudden my video sceen went heywire, and I looked up to see my mini2 tumbling down to earth. I got lucky as the little bird fell into about 2 feet of powder upside down, so zero damage.

put a call into dji and they just apologized and told me to do an IMU calibration. which i did last night. all is well and she flies great , go figure. i feel bad for anyone who had this happen over the ocean. i was lucky this time.

I cant help but wonder if something jammed my transmission, but wouldn't dji program into the technology to have the min2 hold and hover as a failsafe incase signal is jammed?

on a side note, i was near CN railway and they like to use wireless transmitters that put out tonnes of power. any chance they shot me down, ideas guys?

 

[slup]

...today in the snowy woods...sudden my video sceen went heywire, and I looked up to see my mini2 tumbling down

Was the ambient temp near freezing with visible moist in the air (haze, fog)? If so this most probably was a case of prop icing ... But share your flight log so we can look ...

Go here --> DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help and upload the log from the flight there ... when done they will provide you with a link ... copy that & share that in a new post here. (Scroll down a bit on that site for where to find the log ...)

I cant help but wonder if something jammed my transmission, but wouldn't dji program into the technology to have the min2 hold and hover as a failsafe incase signal is jammed?

It sounds like you have missed reading the full manual about failsafe ... go here & download --> https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/DJI_Mini_2/20210630/DJI_Mini_2_User_Manual-EN.pdf and read up on page 15.

 

[EsaT]

on a side note, i was near CN railway and they like to use wireless transmitters that put out tonnes of power. any chance they shot me down, ideas guys?

In a way only difference between normal wireless transmission and EMP is just the scale of power.
So it's possibility that EMI from some powerfull transmitter caused errors and made electronics go dumb.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Another one for upload the txt log to Phantomhelp & post the lick to the resulting page.
And you may want to read or reread the manual.

 

[slup]

...So it's possibility that EMI from some powerfull transmitter caused errors and made electronics go dumb.

The possibility for that to happen in the middle of a snowy forrest ... even though near a mine & a railway, is really zero to none. Haven't seen anything like EMI bursts that take out a drones electronics in years investigating incidents here. Have though seen a lot of WiFi interference making the RC-AC connection break ... but in that case the failsafe action kicks in & the craft RTH, they don't fall dead out of the sky.

 

[goldensky]

unless there is a hidden millitary operation nearby to emp my bird, it looked like it was verymuch directected at the transmission , otherwise why would my screen image be scrambled and static
I was in the mining town of Yale BC, no airports but there's lots of Native Indian camps up here too. maybe they have a jammer. but i still cant believe failsafe just didnt hold hover, the IMU has this built in as a safety feature.

i'm very interested and pulling the flight log now ..

 

[EsaT]

The possibility for that to happen in the middle of a snowy forrest ... even though near a mine & a railway, is really zero to none. Haven't seen anything like EMI bursts that take out a drones electronics in years investigating incidents here. Have though seen a lot of WiFi interference making the RC-AC connection break ... but in that case the failsafe action kicks in & the craft RTH, they don't fall dead out of the sky.

Yep, pretty unlikely, but still can't be excluded.
In case of electric locomotive in cold weather there can be also quite visible sparking in connection to power wire as another possible EMI source.

It wasn't mentioned, but I wonder if battery charge wasn't exactly good.
Lower charge Li-Ions like to go to sudden death mode at freezing temperature...
Sometimes you have barely enough time to answer incoming call.
Though in that case video feed should have cut out completely and instantly.

 

[slup]

...i'm very interested and pulling the flight log now ..

Yeah ... you do that, before you share them you only will be getting a bunch of speculations.

 

[goldensky]

only EMI i could realistically blame it on is the cellphone itself, iphone 13, it could be pumping out interference trying to ping a tower, since there was no cell reception. next time i fly airplane mode.

 

[Meta4]

only EMI i could realistically blame it on is the cellphone itself, iphone 13, it could be pumping out interference trying to ping a tower, since there was no cell reception. next time i fly airplane mode.

Interference won't cause the drone to fall from the sky.
At worst, it might swamp the control signal, which would initiate RTH.
Interference wasn't the cause of your incident.

 

[slup]

only EMI i could realistically blame it on is the cellphone itself, iphone 13...

If that was the case all earth electronics should go black every day ... your phone can't emit anything near the power needed to take out the electronics in your drone.

 

[goldensky]

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

could it have been motor failure?
took off with 21 sats.. getting GPS mismatch code,

@ 180ft i get a code for motor unable to rotate Code: 30165

the gps definatly looks scrammbled

GPS signal weak. Switched to Attitude mode. Aircraft unable to hover. Fly with caution.; NGPS signal weak. Positioning accuracy affected. Fly with caution (Code: 30049).; Gyroscope initialization failed. Restart aircraft (Code: 30045).; Motor unable to rotate. Check for objects blocking motor or contact DJI Support for assistance. (Code: 30165).; Aircraft max power load reached. Decrease altitude and fly with caution. If this issue persists, land immediately (Code: 30168).; GPS signal weak. Hovering unstable. Fly with caution (Code: 30002).; Aircraft in Attitude mode. Unable to hover. Fly with caution (Code: 30004).; IMU calibration required. Calibrate IMU (Code: 30050).; GPS Position Mismatch.

 

[Meta4]

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

could it have been motor failure?

Post the flight data and we'll see.
There's no point guessing without looking at what the data shows.

 

[zetetic]

The OP states that he was flying in "...the snowy woods of a gold mine town in Canada". That suggests ambient temperatures of less than 0 centigrade. Note that the published minimum operating spec for this equipment is 0 degress centigrade. If the temperature in the "snowy woods" was below freezing, then the explanation would be pilot error.

The manufacturer publishes the spec here:

DJI OM 4 - Specifications - DJI

From 15 hours of max battery life to how to use DynamicZoom, find out everything you need to know about DJI OM 4.

www.dji.com

 

[Meta4]

If the temperature in the "snowy woods" was below freezing, then the explanation would be pilot error.

There are all kinds of possible causes for the incident.
Until the OP posts the flight data, there's no point speculating

 

[goldensky]

the snow was at melting point and water was running down the banks, i would say 5-6Centigrade out. while drone was stored in a warm car for about an 1hr


can you access my posted file?

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

 

[zetetic]

There are all kinds of possible causes for the incident.
Until the OP posts the flight data, there's no point speculating.

Fine. I will amend accordingly: if the OP was flying in below freezing temperature, then a reasonable presumption of pilot error due to flying out of spec would be in order. Note that the pilot has subsequently discounted the out of spec scenario.

 

[Meta4]

can you access my posted file?

Yes .... standby for a bit

 

[slup]

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

could it have been motor failure

According to the telemetry from the log your drone pitched heavily rear down & rolled over to the right at about 77sec into the flight ... at the same time it rotated CW.

All this suggest a loss of thrust from the rear right corner either due to a prop or motor failure ... all relevant data in below chart.

Pink background= ordinary GPS mode
Purple background=Atti mode (due to that the craft turned away from the sky it lost it's GPS lock)
Red=height above HP
Green=pitch
Blue=roll
Purple=Yaw

 

[goldensky]

it was doing Endos all the way down into a snowy bank

flew it last night at the park, my dog was chasinging it for 20 minutes, it was 2-4 centigrade, no issues

maybe i got a bad esc???