Hello Eveyone I lost my MM...

[PaulDoneDrone]

I'm a long time lurker, but never posted in the forum. I bought my MM a year ago, in late Oct. and enjoyed it quite a lot. I have over 100h of light, I lost a job and I was able to go out almost daily.

I have never crashed, I'm trying to be as safe as possible I had few close calls flying low over water (due to reflection I believe) but the drone was always responding to my sicks.

A few days back we went up north and I decided to record fall colors over a big canyon. I took off, area was clean of obstacles, and open, no wind, quite warm.

When I took off everything was good, I hover at 5m, after about a minute and 20 sec I decided to go up a bit to 10m drone reacted and went to 10-12m. Few seconds later drone started slowly descent by itself, I moved forward deeper into the canyon and hit the up stick and the drone went up as expected.

About 20 seconds later drone started to descent again by itself. I had my stick all the way up, but the drone was going down fast. It was completely not responding, I had a clear line of sight and the drone was not very far from me, the connection was great. the whole thing took maybe 15s and the drone hit the bottom of the canyon, it felt like the connection was lost, but I could see the screen etc. just the sticks were completely unresponsive.

There is no way to retrieve the drone, the area is completely inaccessible to people, I had an extended warranty but in order to use it, I need a drone which is at the bottom of the canyon.

Is there anyone here that could look at the log and tell me if I'm not hallucinating in what happened, It is hard to remember when things happen fast under stress, I want to check with the community if it was a drone fault, not an operator before I contact DJI.

Regards

P

 

[old man mavic]

sorry for your lost drone ,i am sure one of our experts will be along shortly to help you out

 

[AeriaPhoto]

Have not looked at the file but strong downdraft aren’t uncommon in topography such as canyons. This would be my best guess if I had to bet on something, without looking at the logs.

 

[hiflyer201]

Welcome to the forum from California...I'm sure that's not much consolation. There is a great deal of help here..maybe there will be a happy solution.

 

[steve495]

You should have immediately seen some warnings on your screen. You were in Attitude Mode and GPS signal was weak. My Mini has gone a bit nuts in those situations.
Then there was a bunch of "not enough force" issues.
You also had additional GPS signal issues.
There are others here that can provide more detailed information, but this shows the general overview with the above mentioned. Look at General > Notifications. Then look at Sensors > GPS.
Sorry you lost the drone.

 

[Thomas B]

Welcome to the forum from the deserts of Arizona!
Sorry you lost your drone

 

[Capt KO]

Hope DJI comes through for you. In the past, they have been forgiving in cases of “not enough force” issues. Each case different. Good luck and sorry for your loss.

 

[Chetk7677]

Welcome from Florida. Sorry about your drone loss.

 

[PaulDoneDrone]

You should have immediately seen some warnings on your screen. You were in Attitude Mode and GPS signal was weak. My Mini has gone a bit nuts in those situations.
Then there was a bunch of "not enough force" issues.
You also had additional GPS signal issues.
There are others here that can provide more detailed information, but this shows the general overview with the above mentioned. Look at General > Notifications. Then look at Sensors > GPS.
Sorry you lost the drone.

I did see I have 9 satellites I have stayed in one place and waited for HP to update and acquire more satellites, it took about 40 seconds or so, MM was stable since I was 5m above ground sensors were keeping it in place, once I got HP updated I flew a bit further. the drone was behaving fine, it was responsive to my sticks etc. for some reason it descended by itself GPS was fine at that point. I was not touching sticks and it went down quite fast

 

[PaulDoneDrone]

Have not looked at the file but strong downdraft aren’t uncommon in topography such as canyons. This would be my best guess if I had to bet on something, without looking at the logs.

It was not windy at all, could downdraft be so strong to suck drone so quickly? It had to be some force pushing the drone down, or something with the motors, the first time it reacted to my up stick but the second time noting at all.

 

[steve495]

I did see I have 9 satellites I have stayed in one place and waited for HP to update and acquire more satellites, it took about 40 seconds or so, MM was stable since I was 5m above ground sensors were keeping it in place, once I got HP updated I flew a bit further. the drone was behaving fine, it was responsive to my sticks etc. for some reason it descended by itself GPS was fine at that point. I was not touching sticks and it went down quite fast

The log files show a problem with lack of GPS lock. Seven to nine sats may not be enough depending on where you are. You were in Atti mode within seven seconds of from the start of the log file starting. Right from the get-go, the flight was in trouble.

There are other log files that I'm not familiar with that will show motor power issues.

 

[Meta4]

You should have immediately seen some warnings on your screen. You were in Attitude Mode and GPS signal was weak. My Mini has gone a bit nuts in those situations.
You also had additional GPS signal issues.

The log files show a problem with lack of GPS lock. Seven to nine sats may not be enough depending on where you are. You were in Atti mode within seven seconds of from the start of the log file starting. Right from the get-go, the flight was in trouble.

The OP explained the launch and GPS in post #9.
Drones don't go nuts in atti mode, they hover and are flyable but don't hold horizontal position.
The launch was from a spot where tree cover blocked satellite reception but from 0:45.1, the drone had good GPS.
Being in atti mode early in this flight was not a problem and had nothing to do with the crash.

The crash was probably due to the Firmware version which was 1.0.200
Uncommanded descent incidents like this were very common in the early days of the Mini but are almost never seen since firmware 1.0.5.

 

[zeusfl]

Sorry for your lost.

 

[SpitFire]

Welcome to the forum from Chicago the Windy City, and sorry about the crash of your MM.

 

[Jazzy Joe]

If you know where the drone is, try retrieving it with another drone. My neighbor lost a drone on one of the rooftops, i made a three-prong wire hook on a 5m string and retrieved it with my hexa. It wasn't difficult at all; it only took around 15 secs to hook it up by the arm, camera pointing down.
I know this kind of operation might be a little more difficult in treacherous terrain... the hook might get caught in branches etc. I would use an emergency string release mapped to one of the radio channels in this case.

 

[Medley]

Paul, really sorry for your frustrating loss. It appears that lack of power is a recurring issue for the minis, and your little bird was experiencing it in spades.

I would like to point out, assuming you didn't know it, that Transport Canada prohibits the takeoff or landing of any aircraft within provincial or national park boundaries. You were flying in Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park, and based on the scenery I can see the appeal. However, it's incumbent on all of us who want to protect the hobby to play by the rules, even though we may not like them.

 

[PaulDoneDrone]

Some good news, after so many days back and forth with DJI today they have confirmed it was aircraft fault and will be sending me a new unit.
I will have 2 small drones now MM1 and new MM2
They must have a massive mess as they have asked me for logs exactly 5 times

 

[cameraz]

Some good news, after so many days back and forth with DJI today they have confirmed it was aircraft fault and will be sending me a new unit.
I will have 2 small drones now MM1 and new MM2
They must have a massive mess as they have asked me for logs exactly 5 times

Congratulations Paul. That's great that DJI will be sending you a new drone. I am out of luck, however. I crashed my Mini up in a tree somewhere and it was my fault for not seeing the tree. My Mini was only 2 1/2 months old. ?