M2P Inexplicably Crashed Into The Pacific

[Rcdorsey1984]

My Mavic 2 Pro Crashed into the ocean yesterday. I’m in Hawaii and was flying over the ocean about 100 yards off shore. With about 20 percent battery left i began to bring the drone home, i was only a few hundred feet away. For no apparent reason, the drone dove down at an angle and crashed into the ocean. I could not control it all from the remote, although I tried. No sensor warnings went off. I can’t figure out what went wrong and am more than a little disappointed to see my M2P gone. I looked over the flight log and there isn’t much to see. The drone just stops and crashes with about 20 percent battery left, no warnings, no sensor activity- it just dropped from the sky only a few hundred feet away from me on shore. Is there anyone that can analyze my flight log and explain what happened? I’ve never had a problem like this with my old phantom or Mavic Pro 1. If anyone can help, please let me know how to send my flight log info and I’ll do so. Thx

 

[Ozarkwoods]

Sorry about your loss, it’s posts like this that has me hesitant flying over water. Flying over land at least I have some chance of recovery and repair.

 

[Rcdorsey1984]

Sorry about your loss, it’s posts like this that has me hesitant flying over water. Flying over land at least I have some chance of recovery and repair.

Ya, it’s a real bummer. I just can’t understand what happened. Hoping someone can explain what might have caused this.
I have an email in to DJI, but I doubt they will be much help.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Sorry for the loss

How many satellites did you have and what was the satellite signal strength?

Could it have hit a bird? Last time I flew in Hawaii, I had several birds dive bombing my drone and no warnings went off because they came from above, had I not been in VLOS I would have never known.

Did you charge your battery fully before the flight? Do you store and maintain your batteries as per DJI's recommendations?

Best practice is always to bring drones home at 30%, even though that does cut into flight time significantly - 20 minutes is still a long time though. I wouldn't expect you to get a critical voltage drop at 20% unless something else was wrong, but these things seem to always happen at really low battery percentages.

Anyways if you can post the flight log, there are people here who can very likely tell you what went wrong at least from the drone's perspective.

Sorry about your loss, it’s posts like this that has me hesitant flying over water. Flying over land at least I have some chance of recovery and repair.

I think a lot of people put floating landing gear on their drones for this reason - then you can recover it from water provided you can get out to it.

 

[Rcdorsey1984]

Sorry for the loss

How many satellites did you have and what was the satellite signal strength?

Could it have hit a bird? Last time I flew in Hawaii, I had several birds dive bombing my drone and no warnings went off because they came from above, had I not been in VLOS I would have never known.

Did you charge your battery fully before the flight? Do you store and maintain your batteries as per DJI's recommendations?

Best practice is always to bring drones home at 30%, even though that does cut into flight time significantly - 20 minutes is still a long time though. I wouldn't expect you to get a critical voltage drop at 20% unless something else was wrong, but these things seem to always happen at really low battery percentages.

Anyways if you can post the flight log, there are people here who can very likely tell you what went wrong at least from the drone's perspective.



I think a lot of people put floating landing gear on their drones for this reason - then you can recover it from water provided you can get out to it.

Battery was fully charged, 15 satellites were connected at the time of the crash. I did not see any bird and there was no jarring motion like a bird attack. I was watching the screen and the drone just seemed to take a hard 45 degree angle downward turn towards the water. I could not stop it with the remote and no sensor warnings went off.
How do I share the flight record? Would a screen shot video of it playing be what you’re looking for?
These are the options I see for sharing. I’ve never had to do this before and I’m not familiar with the flight record sharing aspect of the DJI stuff..

 

[CanadaDrone]

There is a way to export the flight record, though I have not had to do it myself yet (knock on wood).

I think this thread has instructions but someone will correct me if I am wrong:

Download Flight Logs

It is encrypted and needs the appropriate reader. There are some members here that are very good at interpreting them.

You were on my favorite island too - I bet you got some great footage there, before the crash of course

 

[Rcdorsey1984]

There is a way to export the flight record, though I have not had to do it myself yet (knock on wood).

I think this thread has instructions but someone will correct me if I am wrong:

Download Flight Logs

It is encrypted and needs the appropriate reader. There are some members here that are very good at interpreting them.

You were on my favorite island too - I bet you got some great footage there, before the crash of course

Yea, I did get some excellent Hyperlapses/video/photos prior to the crash. Luckily, I had downloaded them after each flight so all was not lost in the crash. I guess it could have been worse.

 

[Meta4]

If anyone can help, please let me know how to send my flight log info and I’ll do so. Thx

To share your recorded flight data, go to DJI Flight Log Viewer - Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.

 

[John MacAulay]

It's posts like this that make me nervous, as if I wasn't already nervous enough while in flight. 98% of my flight time is above salt water on our beautiful Nova Scotia coastline. Salt marshes, cliffs, high surf beaches, all the most un-retrievable spots.
But.. the awesome clear sight lines and solid, no interference connections and long distance possibilities make it hard not to love flying over water just the same.
I know, it sounds conflicted. lol
Sorry for your lost aircraft amigo.

 

[Rcdorsey1984]

To share your recorded flight data, go to DJI Flight Log Viewer - Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.

 

[Rcdorsey1984]

Thanksfor the link, I was able to get the flight record. If you can tell me anything about it that would be great. I spoke with DJI and they informed that the drone is still under warranty, so it should be replaced. They are having their engineers look through the flight record and they will get back to me in 48 hours they said. Hoping they follow through with the replacement.

 

[sar104]

Thanksfor the link, I was able to get the flight record. If you can tell me anything about it that would be great. I spoke with DJI and they informed that the drone is still under warranty, so it should be replaced. They are having their engineers look through the flight record and they will get back to me in 48 hours they said. Hoping they follow through with the replacement.

I'm a bit puzzled by the flight log, relative to your description. Plotting relative altitude and throttle position at the end of the flight, it appears that you simply flew it into the ground - you had full down throttle for the final 8 seconds of flight. The aircraft appears to have responded correctly to all control inputs.

 

[Meta4]

With about 20 percent battery left i began to bring the drone home, i was only a few hundred feet away. For no apparent reason, the drone dove down at an angle and crashed into the ocean. I could not control it all from the remote, although I tried. No sensor warnings went off. I can’t figure out what went wrong and am more than a little disappointed to see my M2P gone. I looked over the flight log and there isn’t much to see.

I think you should look more closely at the recorded flight data as it tells a very different story.
Here's what your flight data looks like:
DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
First there is a potentially fatal flaw in your takeoff.
You didn't wait for GPS and flew out to sea at full speed without having set a home point.
The Mavic gets GPS properly to be able to record a home point until 42.2 seconds. when it was already perhaps 900 feet away from you.
Unsurprisingly, the home point is 300 feet from the nearest dry land.
We don't know how far it is from your launch point because there was no way for the drone to record that.
If you had initiated RTH or lost signal, your drone would have attempted to land in the sea.

But that's just a potential problem and it did not factor in the loss of your Mavic.

Looking at the data to the end of the flight, I see that from 22:17.6 where you were at 17 ft higher than the launch point, you were flying forward at full speed and pulled the left stick down hard until 22:25.8.
Holding the left stick down hard for 8 seconds, your Mavic descended 77 ft which brought your altitude down to 60 ft lower than your launch point.
It looks like you realised the problem and at 22:25.9 you pulled the left stick up but it was too late and the flight data stops at 22:26.3 with the Mavic slowing its descent but it's too late.
Presumably that's because it was swimming.

 

[Rcdorsey1984]

I'm a bit puzzled by the flight log, relative to your description. Plotting relative altitude and throttle position at the end of the flight, it appears that you simply flew it into the ground - you had full down throttle for the final 8 seconds of flight. The aircraft appears to have responded correctly to all control inputs.

View attachment 51455

View attachment 51456

Thanks for taking a look. I can’t explain the down throttle, I had the joystick in the up position trying to gain altitude. It felt like I had no control of the aircraft.

It was my understanding that the drone has sensors that would prevent a downward collision. Any reason why these did not prevent the crash?

Thanks for the help.

 

[sar104]

Thanks for taking a look. I can’t explain the down throttle, I had the joystick in the up position trying to gain altitude. It felt like I had no control of the aircraft.

It was my understanding that the drone has sensors that would prevent a downward collision. Any reason why these did not prevent the crash?

Thanks for the help.

Any chance that you got confused? You had full forward elevator (right stick forwards) and full down throttle (left stick backwards). There is no ambiguity about that, and it was the direct reason for the crash. I don't know what the terrain looked like, so I can't really comment on what the sensors saw, but flying into the ground with full down throttle and full forwards elevator, at 14 m/s horizontal and 3 m/s descending, it is probably expecting too much for the sensors to save you.

 

[Meta4]

Thanks for taking a look. I can’t explain the down throttle, I had the joystick in the up position trying to gain altitude. It felt like I had no control of the aircraft.

Looking at the throttle and altitude before the final descent, the aircraft is responding perfectly to joystick input.
It also changed diredtion when you gave it hard right rudder in the last half second.
Looking at the final 0.4 seconds when you pushed the throttle upwards, the descent slowed from 3 metres/sec to 1.6 m/s but it was too late to help.

It was my understanding that the drone has sensors that would prevent a downward collision. Any reason why these did not prevent the crash?

You crashed into water which can be tricky for the sensors, and you were tossing the drone around, having just spun it 90 degrees from facing west to north in the last half second.

 

[Rcdorsey1984]

Any chance that you got confused? You had full forward elevator (right stick forwards) and full down throttle (left stick backwards). There is no ambiguity about that, and it was the direct reason for the crash. I don't know what the terrain looked like, so I can't really comment on what the sensors saw, but flying into the ground with full down throttle and full forwards elevator, at 14 m/s horizontal and 3 m/s descending, it is probably expecting too much for the sensors to save you.

View attachment 51457

Confusion- seems that’s the only reasonable explanation. I have flown DJI drones for more that 24 hours total flight time and have never brain farted this hard. I suppose I could have made the mistake of pushing the the joystick in the wrong direction. I just can’t believe I would do that. And I noticed the rapid descent and was actively trying to gain altitude, apparently with the joystick in the wrong direction. Smh

What do you suppose DJI will come back at me with? Do they offer a discount for jack***’s like myself to buy the drone itself only? I’m sure they will not replace it under warranty given the flight record.

 

[mavicn00b]

Confusion- seems that’s the only reasonable explanation. I have flown DJI drones for more that 24 hours total flight time and have never brain farted this hard. I suppose I could have made the mistake of pushing the the joystick in the wrong direction. I just can’t believe I would do that. And I noticed the rapid descent and was actively trying to gain altitude, apparently with the joystick in the wrong direction. Smh

What do you suppose DJI will come back at me with? Do they offer a discount for jack***’s like myself to buy the drone itself only? I’m sure they will not replace it under warranty given the flight record.

Typical BS of 15% off RRP for the drone only. Cheaper to buy one from a shop and sell the bits you dont need.

 

[sar104]

Typical BS of 15% off RRP for the drone only. Cheaper to buy one from a shop and sell the bits you dont need.

15% seems pretty generous for something that is entirely pilot error.

 

[sar104]

Confusion- seems that’s the only reasonable explanation. I have flown DJI drones for more that 24 hours total flight time and have never brain farted this hard. I suppose I could have made the mistake of pushing the the joystick in the wrong direction. I just can’t believe I would do that. And I noticed the rapid descent and was actively trying to gain altitude, apparently with the joystick in the wrong direction. Smh

What do you suppose DJI will come back at me with? Do they offer a discount for jackass’s like myself to buy the drone itself only? I’m sure they will not replace it under warranty given the flight record.

They will quite likely offer you a discount on a replacement aircraft.