LOST MY MAVIC PLEASE HELP!!

_milo_ · Feb 11, 2017

This flight was close to sunset, 6:30pm? I wonder if RTH path was in the direction of the sun, OA kicked in and eventually landed at critical battery.

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RallySoob · Feb 11, 2017

Ya u refer to it as a quadcopter; not as a drone

Damien66 · Feb 11, 2017

Hello Kirsten, you said that right after the app crashed, you switched from sport mode to P-mode. Isn't it possible that you just canceled the RTH? If yes, it stayed hovering until critical battery level and landed there on the last known coords.

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Damien66 · Feb 11, 2017

The longer I read cases with RTH on this forum, the higher I am decided to make deep tests of its behavings in situations like this. My advice for the future is that if app crashes, go back home by LOS or RTH immediately.

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Cyberpower678 · Feb 11, 2017

Damien66 said:
The longer I read cases with RTH on this forum, the higher I am decided to make deep tests of its behavings in situations like this. My advice for the future is that if app crashes, go back home by LOS or RTH immediately.

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RTH isn't as dangerous as all that. You just need to know what's in the path of the drone, how high up it needs to be, and if the sun is in the path of the home point. I've done extensive tests including flying 2km out and shutting off the remote. My drone came back in every instance.

Robbyg · Feb 11, 2017

Damien66 said:
The longer I read cases with RTH on this forum, the higher I am decided to make deep tests of its behavings in situations like this. My advice for the future is that if app crashes, go back home by LOS or RTH immediately.

Sent from my iPad using MavicPilots

One of the things I did on a 500m distant flight was to pretend that the phone had crashed and then I just looked only at the controller screen.
You would be surprised how quickly and safely you can return by just raising the altitude and then moving forward while watching the distance, turn a bit left or right or radically left or right until the distance is getting smaller at the fastest rate. Then just push forward watch the altitude and distance and within a minute I could faintly hear the buzzing and then guided it in until distance was within 20m or so and then started to descend until I could see the drone clearly.

Of course I could see all of this becoming a lot more complicated if it happens unexpectedly and worst if all the darn alarms are going off

Rob

F6Rider · Feb 11, 2017

An app crash in and of itself will not initiate a RTH, there has to be a signal loss, or in this case a low power event. The app crashing just lost you the video and on app controls, but all of the controller functions should have still been working. Not sure how far away it was and at what value you have critical battery set to but it more than likely started home, hit critical low battery, and went into auto land, but you couldn't see that as the app was down.

F6Rider · Feb 11, 2017

Damien66 said:
Hello Kirsten, you said that right after the app crashed, you switched from sport mode to P-mode. Isn't it possible that you just canceled the RTH? If yes, it stayed hovering until critical battery level and landed there on the last known coords.

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This is a good bet, I know switching into or out of Sport mode will cancel most other modes it is in, never tried to cancel a RTH event that way, worth a test to see

erkme73 · Feb 11, 2017

What is the default behavior when low and then critical battery are reached? Even if low battery triggers a return to home, isn't that done in the app? IOW, if the app is off/crashed, will the low battery trigger (the one that prompts you to confirm RTH) still initiate? And when the battery level goes critical, doesn't it auto land - and the RC start beeping (like it's doing an RTH)?

Robert Granata · Feb 11, 2017

_milo_ said:
This flight was close to sunset, 6:30pm? I wonder if RTH path was in the direction of the sun, OA kicked in and eventually landed at critical battery.

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Agree, this looks like the most likely scenario. Tried to go home, saw the sun as an obstacle and kept rising to try to get over it until low battery forced it to land. Most likely right where the path ends on HealthDrones.

ThisIsCusel · Feb 11, 2017

I would tell a white lie. Tell them you got your kid one of those "toy drone thingys?" for his birthday, and he said he crashed it in that field."

Then just play up your "hero story." Should be free to look around without to many looks.

Boog0822 · Feb 11, 2017

Perfect example of why I always take off with a full battery and always land with 30% or more remaining. You never know when you'll have an issue and need that extra 30% battery power to get your MP home safely and avoid having to write a "Lost Mavic" post.

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kirsten.rossouw · Feb 11, 2017

Return to Home was in the direction of the sun. Now up at the crack of dawn to go look for my sweetheart. Thanks for all the help guys, hold thumbs!

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BD0G · Feb 11, 2017

Post an update. Hope its a pleasant one!

kirsten.rossouw · Feb 12, 2017

Great news guys!
Rounded up a couple of guys, offered a generous reward and an hour in found my Mavic! Woohoo! Thank you so much for all your help- from to bottom of my heart! See the search heros in the picture!

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jaredtamu08 · Feb 12, 2017

How far from the last point reported was it?

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morgish · Feb 12, 2017

Where was it?

shvncrvn · Feb 12, 2017

Awesome news Kristen. I see you are from the roodepoort area, good call for not going out in the night trying to search for it. Unfortunately us South Africans cant go walking into bushy areas at night scrap that any areas without the risk of getting mugged or worse.