Lost my Mini 2

[Chris Rees]

Beautiful morning here this morning on the Dorset coast, took my Mini 2 up on the foreshore. Drone ascended to 186ft and flew for 1 minute to a distance of 455ft, then it lost connection. Anticipating the fail safe return to home to kick in I didn’t panic. But, no, waited and waited and waited and nothing she just hovered there until (I assume) the battery depleted and she fell into the sea. I am absolutely gutted and can’t fathom what went wrong other than a catastrophic failure. The last video shows the drone hovering at 186ft and then a blank screen? I do have Care Refresh and hope DJI can resolve this issue without me having to pay for a Flyaway.

 

[Yogi053]

What setting did you have on RTH? Did you check settings before taking off?

 

[Chris Rees]

Home point was updated, altitude was set at 69ft which wasn’t an issue as I was on the beach

 

[Yogi053]

Home point was updated, altitude was set at 69ft which wasn’t an issue as I was on the beach

I meant the setting RTH. Set for RTH/HOVER/ LAND! Did you check?

 

[Chris Rees]

Home point was updated, altitude was set at 69ft which wasn’t an issue as I was on the beach

Oh and yes it was definitely set to return to home and not to land or hover. Any idea why would it lose signal at this distance?

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Post the flight log, see DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help for instructions on how to retrieve the log. Once you have the log up-load it to that site and post the resulting link in this thread.
Incidentally if the drone remained airborne until the battery ran low the low battery would have triggered its own RTH.
A blank screen does not necessarily mean the drone disconnected from the controller, have a read of
My Mavic 3 flew away - Any Help Please with Location
and look at the 2nd post's video, take note of, and compare, the red banner messages at the start and end of that video.

 

[Yogi053]

I don't have a clue! You are on a beach, you fly out to 455 ft at a reasonable height, you seem to have a good case for replacement.Don't know if they do it here or not, but on the Dji forum, there are experts who will read and analyse your flight logs to give an idea of just what happened.

 

[old man mavic]

@Chris Rees if you are definitely sure that the RTH was not set to hover ,as soon as you realised it wasnt coming home ,did you try to cancel RTH and fly it home ,sounds like a possible geo fence issue where you entered a geo fenced zone and it just stayed put
these are just some ideas to ponder till the experts can take a look at the logs

 

[Chris Rees]

I think this is the file

 

[Chris Rees]

I’m trying to upload the flight log from my phone but no joy

 

[Chris Rees]

@Chris Rees if you are definitely sure that the RTH was not set to hover ,as soon as you realised it wasnt coming home ,did you try to cancel RTH and fly it home ,sounds like a possible geo fence issue where you entered a geo fenced zone and it just stayed put
these are just some ideas to ponder till the experts can take a look at the logs

I didn’t get the opportunity to cancel RTH and fly manually as the screen went blank

 

[Deleted member 103366]

I’m trying to upload the flight log from my phone but no joy

I have never tried uploading a log directly from the phone. Perhaps you could try downloading/copying the log to a computer and then upload that downloaded copy, that's how I do it.
Did you have a look at the video I mentioned and can you confirm whether or not this was a drone/controller disconnection or a controller/phone disconnection?

 

[old man mavic]

@Chris Rees ok ,but the screen going blank ,does not necessarily mean you lost the connection from the RC to the drone ,it may just have been between the RC and your screen device
even if the screen device is disconnected you can still control the drone

 

[Meta4]

I’m trying to upload the flight log from my phone but no joy

Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
Or .. just post the txt file here.

You probably need to use a computer to do this.

 

[Chris Rees]

@Chris Rees ok ,but the screen going blank ,does not necessarily mean you lost the connection from the RC to the drone ,it may just have been between the RC and your screen device
even if the screen device is disconnected you can still control the drone

Yes but how could I know which direction the drone is facing if I lost sight of the drone temporarily. Looking at my phone for control and then looking for the drone and suddenly losing sight in bright sunlight is one thing, then add in a blank screen and your lost. I know VLOS but at 455ft distance this should have been a formality and it wasn’t

 

[Skwirl]

I figured out how to do upload to Airdata yesterday. theres a ton of useful info in those logs.
Iam glad i did that and it would be a good idea for all new operators to have access to those logs.
then review your logs for any potential issues that may happen.

 

[Meta4]

I figured out how to do upload to Airdata yesterday. theres a ton of useful info in those logs.
Iam glad i did that and it would be a good idea for all new operators to have access to those logs.
then review your logs for any potential issues that may happen.

It doesn't matter if the OP uploads to Airdata, Phantomhelp or just posts the txt file.
The experts can work from any of those.
But until the data appears, this story isn't going anywhere.

 

[Meta4]

Yes but how could I know which direction the drone is facing if I lost sight of the drone temporarily. Looking at my phone for control and then looking for the drone and suddenly losing sight in bright sunlight is one thing, then add in a blank screen and your lost. I know VLOS but at 455ft distance this should have been a formality and it wasn’t

None of that matters.
If you are ever stuck, just switching off the controller will always initiate RTH (unless youve changed the Loss of Signal Action ... which almost no-one ever does)

 

[Chris Rees]

None of that matters.
If you are ever stuck, just switching off the controller will always initiate RTH (unless youve changed the Loss of Signal Action ... which almost no-one ever does)

 

[old man mavic]

@Chris Rees i am not trying to be critical but the first thing i would have done given your situation would have been to press and hold the RTH button on the RC and if it had started bleeping then i would know that it was at least connected to the RC and trying to get home ,then i would have tried to reboot the screen device while this was happening and then once the drone was overhead and descending then just cancel RTH and land manually