Lost Mavic Pro 2

[sar104]

Glory to the persistent!
View attachment 52515
I have retrieved the drone.. I can't really believe it, but it is saved.
When I was hiking up the hill to the presumed crash site and the nearby location where the suspected tree is lurking, I took a slightly different path than previous hikes.
About half way up the hill, I suddenly saw this sad little gizmo lying on the ground...
View attachment 52516
The location was not really on any of the routes or locations where I focused my search, I don't know where it was heading really.
Not a single scratch on the drone, not even the propellers were broken.
Of course I will let it dry and attend to it before I try flying again.

Here comes the bonus! When finding the drone, I also got the images and video from the incident.
HI hope this will shed more light on what happened.
In the the video you can see the drone suddenly stopping, turning around and on its way back to the RTH the way got blocked by the tree (Yes, I think its THE tree @sar104 ) . It hovered there for about 5 minutes before taking of in a direction pretty far from the route back to the RTH.
This is where I found the drone.
60.657022,15.033512
View attachment 52517

I hope the video and seeing what happened will help you in future hunts for lost drones.
At last, thank you for your great support. You are the best.

The video (The connection was lost at approx at 0.10 , just before it starts panning.) :

Nice work. That's a strange location - it's not on an RTH route. It's unfortunate that we can't read the aircraft DAT files from the M2 to figure out what it was doing.

 

[sar104]

@sar104, just one simple question I have always wondered. Does sar stand for Search and Rescue? OP, I hope you find your drone and sar104 is the man to help.

Yes - not very imaginative - it's just my state ID.

 

[SpinItUp]

Could the controller have taken over the RTH with some movement from the sticks or was this a complete signal loss?
Some cool software sar104 is using to pick out that stick in the woods.
Edit; Lucky it went down the hill and not the other way, up into it
IMG_20181106_105412.jpg is the best Mavic photo I've seen on here so far
Congrats

 

[jason38]

Glad you found it!! Hope it's not damaged!?

 

[sar104]

OK - so it just missed the tree that I pointed to and then lost connection, rotated to retrace path and was blocked. The subsequent sideways movement is unexplained. Then it looks like it auto landed due to low battery.

 

[Dave A]

OK - so it just missed the tree that I pointed to and then lost connection, rotated to retrace path and was blocked. The subsequent sideways movement is unexplained. Then it looks like it auto landed due to low battery.

Your data analysis was spot on all things considered. It's funny because it looked like it was trying to decide how to get around the tree then it's like it gave up after awhile and darted to the right as if it was frustrated. Obviously it can't get frustrated but was interesting to see it's movements.

 

[Joebie]

Your data analysis was spot on all things considered. It's funny because it looked like it was trying to decide how to get around the tree then it's like it gave up after awhile and darted to the right as if it was frustrated. Obviously it can't get frustrated but was interesting to see it's movements.

Thought the same exact thing, it 'appeared' frustrated. lol

 

[sar104]

Your data analysis was spot on all things considered. It's funny because it looked like it was trying to decide how to get around the tree then it's like it gave up after awhile and darted to the right as if it was frustrated. Obviously it can't get frustrated but was interesting to see it's movements.

Yes - it did seem like that. If it had done that earlier it would have had enough battery reserve to get home.

 

[Sty Cooper]

Glad you found it!! Hope it's not damaged!?

Thank you! It looks perfectly fine in the visible hardware, but I´ll try it out again in a couple of days

 

[Sty Cooper]

Could the controller have taken over the RTH with some movement from the sticks or was this a complete signal loss?
Some cool software sar104 is using to pick out that stick in the woods.
Edit; Lucky it went down the hill and not the other way, up into it
IMG_20181106_105412.jpg is the best Mavic photo I've seen on here so far
Congrats

Thank you! We were both happy to see each other again

 

[bonie for my droniecc]

Yes - it did seem like that. If it had done that earlier it would have had enough battery reserve to get home.

Nice job Sar, this forum is lucky to have you

 

[sar104]

Nice job Sar, this forum is lucky to have you

Thanks, but I was really no help at all on this one - the OP found the aircraft by luck. I'm still rather mystified by its behavior.

 

[SpinItUp]

My thoughts are, from Just going on what is observed in the video;
As it avoided the 1st tree (obstacle) it proceeded only to be met by a 2nd one, but by this time the battery was depleting and it dropped to the height of ground level (landing sensor detected this and hovered, but it wasn't flat) preparing for auto land, although in this case seemed to be the hillside.
Sensing that as an obstacle it veered to the right until the ridge was out of sight, though at that moment the auto land took over and the rest is history.

 

[LarryB]

looked like it was "confused" for lack of a better term, on how to get around the top of that tree...would the RTH keep it from going over the set height if it is trying to avoid an obstacle? what i mean to ask here is ..if RTH is set to 30m and the tree is 31m high, would the drone raise up to 31m to get over it or would it be stuck at 30m trying to figure out how to get around the obstacle?

 

[SpinItUp]

@LarryB
The craft was already at the maximum height set
They have some tall trees up there.
The battery was near depleted after trying to work its way around the hill and the sticks on it.
We'll never know for sure.
You're making a situation up, which I'm not sure of the best way to reply.
There was no HEADROOM!
Or your saying I'm making up what I interpreted.

 

[LarryB]

Just looking at the video, it looked like it couldn't figure out how to get around the tree. My thought was ..could it be stuck at the max RTH height and unable to rise to the height it would need to be at to get over the top of the tree. The question was..Does RTH allow for a drone to rise over the set ceiling height to get over obstacles?

but no, not saying you made up anything, just wondering if the programming allows for it to go over the set RTH height if something is in the way.

 

[SpinItUp]

@LarryB
Yes, it would, if there is headroom between the obstacle and the max height set.
I see what you mean and has got me querying it now.
It is mentioned in the manual.
Now s'one will slap me for misquoting what I read once and forgot.
Edit; the sun can play havoc with this anyway. Though in this case it was behind the camera on RTH path.
this guy gives a rundown unless they changed it for the 2

 

[fozzzy]

Excellent result, well done and getting it home

 

[Danny Panini]

I am so grateful for your help and have been out for hours today, following your leads but still no luck...
I have searched on the areas you pointed out to be interesting but I think I need to go through these areas several times.

Beautiful nature but really tough, climbing hills, searching high and low...
A couple of non-drone images from today's hunt, just to describe how the hillsides looks...
View attachment 52444
View attachment 52446

needle in a hay stack

 

[John MacAulay]

Great find, congrats. Nothing better than finding 'her' at the end.