I am an idiot (First Crash)

[mrgolf30]

I had a major brain malfunction earlier this afternoon. I was flying in a small yard trying to get some quality shots of a house. It was very tight due to the amount of large trees all around. Everything was going great until the very end. Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

Here is where I plead temporary insanity. I have no idea why I did what I did, but as the drone was hovering about 10 feet over head and 4 feet in front of me. For some reason instead of landing I exited the app on my phone, pulled the cable, and turned off the remote!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I did it I realized what I did. The drone started going up (in order to RTH), and when it got about halfway up the pine tree it hit a limb. The drone rocked sideways a little and went down some, but then it continued upward. Then it hit another limb and this time it started cartwheeling away from the tree and towards the ground. I thought ok this is it. I am done. A second or so later the drone righted itself an continued upward.

Now what I was doing this entire time? Nothing. I am just standing there frozen watching it happen. Suddenly as if I had been slapped I regained my composure enough to realize the only way to regain control of the situation was to get back in the app, reconnect the cable, and start the remote back up.

Once I did that I was able to cancel RTH and land safely. The drone appears to have made it unscathed. There was a green stain on one of the propellers, but no damage that I saw. I came home and flew it in my yard and everything appeared to work just fine. I then went to another 106 acre property and flew it for a friend. No problems to report. I am thankful I survived this! I can assure all of you that this will never happen again.

Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

 

[Deleted member 3792]

No.

 

[mrgolf30]

No.

Good for you!

 

[old man mavic]

not yet

 

[DDS]

I had a major brain malfunction earlier this afternoon. I was flying in a small yard trying to get some quality shots of a house. It was very tight due to the amount of large trees all around. Everything was going great until the very end. Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

Here is where I plead temporary insanity. I have no idea why I did what I did, but as the drone was hovering about 10 feet over head and 4 feet in front of me. For some reason instead of landing I exited the app on my phone, pulled the cable, and turned off the remote!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I did it I realized what I did. The drone started going up (in order to RTH), and when it got about halfway up the pine tree it hit a limb. The drone rocked sideways a little and went down some, but then it continued upward. Then it hit another limb and this time it started cartwheeling away from the tree and towards the ground. I thought ok this is it. I am done. A second or so later the drone righted itself an continued upward.

Now what I was doing this entire time? Nothing. I am just standing there frozen watching it happen. Suddenly as if I had been slapped I regained my composure enough to realize the only way to regain control of the situation was to get back in the app, reconnect the cable, and start the remote back up.

Once I did that I was able to cancel RTH and land safely. The drone appears to have made it unscathed. There was a green stain on one of the propellers, but no damage that I saw. I came home and flew it in my yard and everything appeared to work just fine. I then went to another 106 acre property and flew it for a friend. No problems to report. I am thankful I survived this! I can assure all of you that this will never happen again.

Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

glad your bird is ok and I would prefer to call it a momentary lack of good judgement over an idiot mistake..

Some members here had a typ 107 attached to their birth certificate

However me personally,
I once took my MP out over a frozen lake flying only 4 ft above the ice in sport mode when I suddenly clipped a branch @ 39 MPH trying to make a u-turn (she drifted about 1 ft too much)...I wasn't so lucky as my gimbal was gone...I'm still on the same MP 3 years later w/ a new gimbal

Lesson learnt nice and steady will keep your drone airborne forever and always preplan your flight

Sure made me a more responsible pilot. So a lesson well learnt

Also if I can only tell you how many crashes roll in for repair on a daily basis you are def not alone. If they were members here 99% of the time they would not have crashed. Plenty of info here on how to fly responsibly.Just being a member is a great first step

 

[Deleted member 3792]

glad your bird is ok and I would prefer to call it a momentary lack of good judgement over an idiot mistake..

Some members here had a typ 107 attached to their birth certificate

However me personally,
I once took my MP out over a frozen lake flying only 4 ft above the ice in sport mode when I suddenly clipped a branch @ 39 MPH trying to make a u-turn (she drifted about 1 ft too much)...I wasn't so lucky as my gimbal was gone...I'm still on the same MP 3 years later w/ a new gimbal

Lesson learnt nice and steady will keep your drone airborne forever and always preplan your flight

Sure made me a more responsible pilot. So a lesson well learnt

Also if I can only tell you how many crashes roll in for repair on a daily basis you are def not alone. If they were they were members here 99% of the time they would not have crashed. Plenty of info here on how to fly responsibly.Just being a member is a great first step

Not a 107 but a Swedish rc license. I have flown RC since mid -80:s. Offcourse I have had some crashes while learning to fly but never shut of the RC while still had an airplane up in the air. That seems very odd to me. RTH wasn’t invented in that early years of flying.

 

[Skywatcher2001]

Nope.

 

[mrgolf30]

I honestly don't know why I did it. I just wasn't thinking. It has made an impression on me, and I will never do it again.

 

[DanMan32]

If it was within 60ft of takeoff, which by default would be the home point, it should have just landed.

Just starting the remote alone would have sufficed to get you out of the mess. Use RTH or pause button to cancel RTH. Then get the app connected.

Glad it went well. That sounded like a good news bad news joke in the making.

 

[macoman]

Well to be honest with you, disconnecting and powering off the controller while the drone is still flying in a tight dangerous space, never has come to my mind because I know that it's the worst thing you can do and crash is inevitable. Now if the drone was far away and not obstruction of hitting the drone on the way back and you want activate RTH. Then yes, you could alternatively turn the controller off. But even this last scenery, I had never done this either.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

Here is where I plead temporary insanity.

Temporary insanity indeed!

I have no idea why I did what I did

I think I know why you did what you did. The clue is right there in your post at the end of paragraph #1.

Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

In your mind, you were done with the task; it was finished. So your mind entered the disassembly and packing stage, which is what you do once you are done flying. Routines are baked into our minds and we can do them without thinking or being aware of them.

All that said, very glad you had your bird in one piece in the end

 

[mrgolf30]

Temporary insanity indeed!



I think I know why you did what you did. The clue is right there in your post at the end of paragraph #1.

In your mind, you were done with the task; it was finished. So your mind entered the disassembly and packing stage, which is what you do once you are done flying. Routines are baked into our minds and we can do them without thinking or being aware of them.

All that said, very glad you had your bird in one piece in the end

That is exactly what happened! I have learned a valuable lesson from this.

 

[allenface]

I had a major brain malfunction earlier this afternoon. I was flying in a small yard trying to get some quality shots of a house. It was very tight due to the amount of large trees all around. Everything was going great until the very end. Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

Here is where I plead temporary insanity. I have no idea why I did what I did, but as the drone was hovering about 10 feet over head and 4 feet in front of me. For some reason instead of landing I exited the app on my phone, pulled the cable, and turned off the remote!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I did it I realized what I did. The drone started going up (in order to RTH), and when it got about halfway up the pine tree it hit a limb. The drone rocked sideways a little and went down some, but then it continued upward. Then it hit another limb and this time it started cartwheeling away from the tree and towards the ground. I thought ok this is it. I am done. A second or so later the drone righted itself an continued upward.

Now what I was doing this entire time? Nothing. I am just standing there frozen watching it happen. Suddenly as if I had been slapped I regained my composure enough to realize the only way to regain control of the situation was to get back in the app, reconnect the cable, and start the remote back up.

Once I did that I was able to cancel RTH and land safely. The drone appears to have made it unscathed. There was a green stain on one of the propellers, but no damage that I saw. I came home and flew it in my yard and everything appeared to work just fine. I then went to another 106 acre property and flew it for a friend. No problems to report. I am thankful I survived this! I can assure all of you that this will never happen again.

Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

Worse thing you can do is panic. Forming a routine and more experience will reduce those incidents. I lost a drone because I let it get out of sight but instead of hitting RTH, I attempted to bring her back manually. I got disoriented and flew her away where she hit a tree and tumbled down. Still had video but no idea where she was. Batteries finally failed in both the Mavic and my phone. Lesson learned. Always take off from a clean open spot and if you get into trouble, hit RTH. You were lucky to get a valuable lesson and your drone back.

 

[Deleted member 3792]

Worse thing you can do is panic. Forming a routine and more experience will reduce those incidents. I lost a drone because I let it get out of sight but instead of hitting RTH, I attempted to bring her back manually. I got disoriented and flew her away where she hit a tree and tumbled down. Still had video but no idea where she was. Batteries finally failed in both the Mavic and my phone. Lesson learned. Always take off from a clean open spot and if you get into trouble, hit RTH. You were lucky to get a valuable lesson and your drone back.

She? Yes drones can behave like women sometimes.??

 

[Dave Maine]

Yes,

flying backwards into a tree while earnestly monitoring the video I was shooting. Great footage smooth backwards flight until the end where the drone spins, flips, and lands upside down inches from the watery edge of a pond.

 

[Bigbird48]

Dasher once went into RTH while under tree's. My fault and the result was the same , up into the branches 6 times before I got control. Dasher was fine me on the other hand SMP

 

[Joe4flight]

I had a major brain malfunction earlier this afternoon. I was flying in a small yard trying to get some quality shots of a house. It was very tight due to the amount of large trees all around. Everything was going great until the very end. Right when I finished the low battery warning came on. No problem because I was finished.

Here is where I plead temporary insanity. I have no idea why I did what I did, but as the drone was hovering about 10 feet over head and 4 feet in front of me. For some reason instead of landing I exited the app on my phone, pulled the cable, and turned off the remote!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as I did it I realized what I did. The drone started going up (in order to RTH), and when it got about halfway up the pine tree it hit a limb. The drone rocked sideways a little and went down some, but then it continued upward. Then it hit another limb and this time it started cartwheeling away from the tree and towards the ground. I thought ok this is it. I am done. A second or so later the drone righted itself an continued upward.

Now what I was doing this entire time? Nothing. I am just standing there frozen watching it happen. Suddenly as if I had been slapped I regained my composure enough to realize the only way to regain control of the situation was to get back in the app, reconnect the cable, and start the remote back up.

Once I did that I was able to cancel RTH and land safely. The drone appears to have made it unscathed. There was a green stain on one of the propellers, but no damage that I saw. I came home and flew it in my yard and everything appeared to work just fine. I then went to another 106 acre property and flew it for a friend. No problems to report. I am thankful I survived this! I can assure all of you that this will never happen again.

Now my question to all of you. Have any of you done anything as stupid with your drone?

As I read your story, it reminded me of a similar incident I experienced a year or so ago. But my drone suffered significant damage which I used my Care Refresh Plan to get a replacement MPP. Here’s what happened. It was a nice fall day. I took my MPP to a local forest preserve. When I activated the RC and drone, I received some kind of interference message on the RC preventing me from taking off. So I powered everything down and moved to another area of the forest preserve where I found a picnic table. I placed the drone on the picnic table, powered it up and also powered up the RC. The drones props were spinning, but not fast enough to get airborne. At that moment, a guy approached me to talk. That was fine. He was interested in what I was doing. As I’m taking to him I noticed the same interference message on the RC. So I powered the RC down while my drone was still sitting on the picnic table with the props spinning. At that moment, the drone went straight up into the air and crashed into several large tree branches. It immediately crashed to the ground. It was destroyed. I learned a valuable and painful lesson. Always power down the drone before powering down the RC.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

I forgot to mention THAT time when I mistook the left stick for the right stick. AC was around 900m out and 80m high over a lake. In my head, I was bringing it back. But in reality I was decending. I caught my mistake as the AC was approaching 10m. A few seconds more and I would have landed it on the water. I have never felt as stupid as that day.

 

[JAW]

Go out and buy some lottery tickets. The Force is with you!

 

[Smokieflies]

Very lucky. I might suggesting replacing the props just to be sure, since that apparently took some of the impact. Don't want a future prop failure bring your drone down.