Flying in Fog crash

[Badgersurfer]

Many of us do photography and come across many challenging situations to get the shot you want. But you MUST assess the risks not only to yourself, but to others as well. I would recommend you take an A2CofC course (regardless of whether your drone falls in the category), as you will indelibly learn all of the legal stuff but also it is worth it's weight in gold by teaching you to most important issue "How to fly safe"... The last thing you want to do is create a situation for yourself whereby you have lost control and finish up physically damaging someone. There are a lot of hazards out there that are not always obvious to the novice. Fly safe...

 

[Nile Mcmillion]

Your props iced up.

Cold and dry is fine, humid and >5°C or so is fine, but -3°C fog is guaranteed to cause icing.

+1 on this theory. As a manned aircraft pilot icing is a very real concern even at low altitudes. As a experiment last winter I took my Mavic Pro up in some very dense fog on a 28F day to 50ft agl. after 10 minutes all four props has a thick coat of ice on the leading edges and the drone was giving me motor error warnings. I'll have to find the photos I took of the ice on the props. Given the circumstances it sounds like the most plausible answer.

 

[Whitefalcon]

Water and electricity don't mix.

Simples

 

[chickentarts]

Happened to me plenty of times, fog + cold weather = icing on the leading edge of the propellers. This will cause it to lose lift and eventually it will fall out of the sky. Same motor error, max load reach etc. It`s due to icing, nice pic btw

 

[ukando]

Hey, seems I've got a similar situation, so i have created a new thread in hope someone helps me to understand what went wrong: https://mavicpilots.com/threads/mini-2-crash.105390/

 

[Jamesz]

A new pilot flying in very limited visibility, icing conditions and beyond line of site indicates a bad attitude to safety.

 

[MS Coast]

Thanks for the info, even if I am a bit discouraged at the moment from flying in freezing fog having nearly lost my drone, I am still keen to find out what went wrong and how people get around it, is there particular way of doing it or people are simply taking their chances. A friend of mine flew his Air2 in such conditions many times without any issues, sometimes he landed, replaced battery and get back to air straight away, Did I make a mistake by putting it in the bag for few minutes and let the ice melt then trying to get airborne with it not completely dried? Or maybe Air 2 is more capable in this regards, hmm

This was Mini2 I've only had access to inapp simple flight log, I know there was a file stored on the mini1 one, has it changed for mini2 ? No access at all ?

I understand the point if you start from the hill and far enough from it over flat you might need to lower your altitude to be 120m over the surface there.
BTW. This could be really be tricky in the mountains flying over valleys with hundreds of meters of almost vertical drops


Thanks!




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Anyway while we covered the potential legal issues and manufacturer recommendations regarding this flight, I am still interested with getting to the bottom of the issue here, as the part when it happened was perfectly legal I had the drone within 10 meters from me, perfectly visible some 12-15 meters above ground when it was flying happily and a second later it wasn't anymore. And I believe the cumulated knowledge and experience of fine mavic pilots here can give me some clues or answers!

I sort of doubt it was the props icing that caused the problem as some one suggested earlier, it was actually flying just fine with some ice on it, it did not when it melted and when I managed to recover it there was no visible Ice on it.
This could have something to do with the fact I put it in the bag for a bit and then trying to fly without drying it first properly. So it looks like if the drone is warm and just getting the fog condensation and freezing before it gets any deeper this could work, When I let it melt and it sort of started refreezing internally it caused the motor/electronics/sensory issues ? Does it make sense ?

Bottom line - it's a huge mistake to fly in icing conditions.

In manned aircraft, any sign of ice on the aircraft is an warning to take immediate action to avoid ice buildup - descending to a lower, warmer altitude, engaging de-icing gear, ... If you had ice on the drone when you landed, I'd say that you were fortunate not to have had a really serious problem. Taking off again into icing conditions was a serious mistake.

 

[GFields]

Greetings!

 

[AMann]

Sorry if I didn’t read the entire post and someone else mentions this, but looking at your flight analysis may point to icing as it will tell you if the drone had to accommodate for loss of lift by increasing RPM’s to maintain stable flight.

 

[787steve]

Hi all, new to the forums and quite new to drones as well. Clocked couple hours of flying Mini and Mini2 still learning the ropes though.
As keen photographer I bought Mini few months ago to aid my still shooting and immediately fell in love. This means I am quite often flying my drone in quite difficult conditions at least for a newbie (almost lost my Mini in the mountains and miraculously recovered it..but this another story!)
Always trying to prepare as much as I can and to some reading to learn from others on the forum and see what they are doing, what are these little drones capable of and this is amazing stuff. Yet still managed to crash my drone 3 times and almost lost it ones
The two recent crashes happened today to be precise.
Just went for little sunrise practise session this morning hoping for some possibly nice shots as there was some fog forecasted. It was quite cold as well around -3 C.
I have flown my drone in the foggy conditions before not this thick though and in much higher temps.
It started nicely flying from the top of the hill in very thick mist, get up to max altitude of 120m and moved a mile or so to get a clear view over the fog. Flying out of sight
and GPS still get me a bit nervous so the footage isn't great especially since battery drains much quicker in such a cold temperature and I wasn't sure if this is indicated on the screen properly (lack of experience!)
Anyway it went quite smooth and I managed to land it nicely without any play up from the landing sensors (i've read these can be fooled by fog sometimes and getting it back on ground could be tricky). It was a bit wet and iced here and there mostly on the propellers,
Picture below nothing really worth dying for
View attachment 121108


I've put it into the bag and was on my way back to car when I spotted scene that caught my eye (Old ruined church on the top of the hill covered in fog). Could not resist, pull drone from the bag, it still had some 60% battery left so took it off and started filming, after 2-3 minutes of filming my Mini2 just suddenly fell down luckily for me it wasn't flying very high some 10-12m and felt on the grass couple meters further it would felt down the cliff on the side of the church.
Anyway I picked it inspected replaced the battery thinking that might have been the issue, and did a short test flight, a minute or so later it fell on the top of nearby tree, spent good hour trying to locate and recover it.
When reviewing the log in the Fly app spotted couple errors that showed up briefly before crashing one being "Motor Error" without any further explanation, another one "Max Power load reached:.." and this right before crash when the drone was actually hovering in Cine mode. There was no wind today at all.
So my confidence is pretty low atm, I might refuse to take off without handful of xanax first!
Need to find out what happened. Was it a combination of frost and fog (humidity/ice)? Why the first flight much longer, higher, longer in fog and then in probably even lower temp was OK, and the next short, low one was a total failure? Did the fact it spend some 10 minutes in the bag after first flight (ice melted?) add to it ?
Have any one experienced anything like that here?
Those conditions are always risky I am aware of that, yet I have seen ton of happy flying in the fog and frost from Mavic pilots, so did not think it will just suddenly fall of the sky.
Think of the guy who did the proper Himalyas panorama with Mavic flying at some 6 or 7k in killer winds and temps (well he had a modified drone and full support from Dji on that project afaik)

Cheers!

In airline operations,
Icing conditions exist when OAT (on the ground) or TAT (in-flight) is 10°C or below, and any of the following exist:
• visible moisture (clouds, fog with visibility of one statute mile (1600 m) or less, rain, snow, sleet, ice crystals, and so on) is present, or

• ice, snow, slush, or standing water is present on the ramps, taxiways, or runways