Mavic 2 Pro Crash out of Control

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

This is very simple, and I say this from experience: flying downtown between large masses of tall buildings is always problematic for GPS signals. What happened here is not unusual or strange. Looking for answers in the traffic signals or holiday tree lighting is pointless.

 

[DanMan32]

The drone moved upward the instant the traffic light at the next intersection turned yellow. Any chance the traffic lights are coordinated by microwave and that interfered with the drone? I don't believe that this was pilot error. The intention was obvious - to fly down the center of the road. To increase altitude, move left, then right, is obviously not the intended flight path.

Loss of signal doesn't cause a Mavic to go out of control. It stays put for a few seconds, some models retrace the path taken for the past 60 seconds, then executes RTH.
This one in the video flipped back and to the right. That's not failsafe behavior.

Now if you're claiming microwave signals caused complete failure of flight control, vehicles and other things in the neighborhood would be affected. FCC would never allow that.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

If you have an M2, simple.
Turn off VPS in Go settings, then fly in an indoor area that completely blocks GPS or sufficiently cover the receiver.

I chose M2 because it's the only model compatible with SC that uses Go app.
If Fly gave you access to control VPS, then MA2 would also be a candidate. Of course you could cover the VPS sensors.

Great idea , but my SC is in the shop getting Alien Ears.

 

[DanMan32]

Really the alert would be shown in the app, and the SC is Android so using a standard remote with Android tablet should show the same thing.

 

[maven4336]

Flying low between buildings still can be risky no matter if sc says satellites are ok in reality there not, the slow process of android in the sc in that situation, had sc from release date, they should had used apple software, just putting my 2-cents in

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

Yeah, even with high sat count -- so ATTI wouldn't kick in yet -- GPS signals can get wonky between buildings.

 

[DanMan32]

Flying low between buildings still can be risky no matter if sc says satellites are ok in reality there not, the slow process of android in the sc in that situation, had sc from release date, they should had used apple software, just putting my 2-cents in

Apple has never licensed their iOS on third party hardware for a third party developer and doubt they ever will. That's why it seems so stable.

 

[LA 2020]

So I was flying my Mavic 2 Pro in the city about 3 weeks ago to simply fly down walking with my drone down an empty street at night. The drone totally went out of control on me with no movements on the sticks by me other than trying to salvage it from flying recklessly out of control. DJI sent this to me stating pilot error and was totally NOT accurate in my opinion and tired of them always blaming the pilots as if they can do no wrong. Here is the video of the crash happening. What are your thoughts?

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This is what DJI replied to me.....

DJI Support (Support) Jan 2, 2021, 5:42 GMT+8 Dear Anthony, Thank you for your patience. This is Honey from the Technical Support team, and I will be assisting you in this case from now on for related inquiries about data analysis. Here's the result of the data analysis on your case number: CAS-5619713-W3C5R2 Incident date: 2020 FLY: 53 1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode, and responded to the pilot’s command well; 2. At flight Time T=966 seconds, Relative Height H=24 meters, Distance to home D=5 meters, the aircraft flew upward as per RC input and crashed with obstacles; 3. Incident coordinates: 6.210386, -75.576840 4. Obstacle avoidance could not detect obstacles in poor lighting conditions. According to the analysis, The incident was caused by the operation error of the pilot. We can still proceed with the repair, the crash accident is covered under the DJI Care Refresh service plan. Please refer to the Repair Service Quotation sent to you via email. To use one of the replacements under DJI Care Refresh, please click. "Use Care Refresh" to settle the replacement fee for the case to move forward. Let us know if we can help with anything else. You know where to reach us. Have a perfect day! Thank you for choosing DJI. Best Regards, Honey, DJI Technical Support

I noticed that you started to loose control exactly when the stoplight turned red, I'm wondering if there was signal interference at that low altitude from the stoplights

 

[anotherlab]

Flying low between buildings still can be risky no matter if sc says satellites are ok in reality there not, the slow process of android in the sc in that situation, had sc from release date, they should had used apple software, just putting my 2-cents in

Even if they used iOS (which as @DanMan32 noted would never be licensed to 3rd party hardware), it's still DJI's software running on the OS. You can have really good apps on Android and crappy apps on iOS, ultimately it comes down to the app developer.

All things considered equal, iOS will be faster than Android for equivalent hardware. Most Android tablets are running hardware that doesn't even come close to Apple's iPad processors in terms of performance.

 

[Mike Mas]

It's a lesson, don't fly in congested downtown areas, there is thousands of microwave transmitters active. Lucky for you it didn't hit that person walking towards the drone, sorry for your loss, but you should have know better.

You could have got the same shot out the window of your car by holding the drone in your hand, always look for the safest option.

Regards - Mike .

 

[wordzenpix]

So I was flying my Mavic 2 Pro in the city about 3 weeks ago to simply fly down walking with my drone down an empty street at night. The drone totally went out of control on me with no movements on the sticks by me other than trying to salvage it from flying recklessly out of control. DJI sent this to me stating pilot error and was totally NOT accurate in my opinion and tired of them always blaming the pilots as if they can do no wrong. Here is the video of the crash happening. What are your thoughts?

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This is what DJI replied to me.....

DJI Support (Support) Jan 2, 2021, 5:42 GMT+8 Dear Anthony, Thank you for your patience. This is Honey from the Technical Support team, and I will be assisting you in this case from now on for related inquiries about data analysis. Here's the result of the data analysis on your case number: CAS-5619713-W3C5R2 Incident date: 2020 FLY: 53 1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode, and responded to the pilot’s command well; 2. At flight Time T=966 seconds, Relative Height H=24 meters, Distance to home D=5 meters, the aircraft flew upward as per RC input and crashed with obstacles; 3. Incident coordinates: 6.210386, -75.576840 4. Obstacle avoidance could not detect obstacles in poor lighting conditions. According to the analysis, The incident was caused by the operation error of the pilot. We can still proceed with the repair, the crash accident is covered under the DJI Care Refresh service plan. Please refer to the Repair Service Quotation sent to you via email. To use one of the replacements under DJI Care Refresh, please click. "Use Care Refresh" to settle the replacement fee for the case to move forward. Let us know if we can help with anything else. You know where to reach us. Have a perfect day! Thank you for choosing DJI. Best Regards, Honey, DJI Technical Support

I had the same experience with a Spark less than an hour out of the box. DJI refused to honor the warranty. I provided all the data, but they kept asking for more. I got fed up and gave up. I finally retrieved the flyaway which roosted in a red cedar next to the beach. After months of exposure, it powered up, did a self-diagnostic, checked out. I decided to fly it on a tether. It behaved normally for a couple of short flights. Third flight, it did the same thing, shot suddenly skyward and the tether stopped it from flying away. It did respond to the land command which it didn't do on the first flyaway.

 

[Steve L Reid]

This happened to me over water the same decision from a Honey. Lost everything, DJI knows how to take care of DJI. I do not own anymore DJI crap.

 

[Meta4]

I noticed that you started to loose control exactly when the stoplight turned red, I'm wondering if there was signal interference at that low altitude from the stoplights

No, no and again no.
Don't be distracted by any of the suggestions of some mystery interference because they are irrelevant and are coming from people who are making silly guesses about things that are impossible.
Stoplights aren't going to cause any mystery interference.
And, at worst, signal interference can only swamp your control signal but never cause the drone to fly in mysterious or uncontrolled ways.

The cause of the problem was 100% down to losing GPS assisted horizontal position holding and not understanding how that affects the drone or how to handle it in that situation.
You flew in an area where much of the sky was blocked by tall buildings, which reduced the number and spread of satellites seen by your drone.
If you want to see the real problem, use this link to download a spreadsheet that shows a selection of the data from your flight.

DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

Upload and view flight logs from your DJI drones

www.phantomhelp.com

Look at Column T (GPS Level) and you'll see that for most of the flight it shows 0 or 1 which indicates that the flight controller had no good GPS location data.

And look at columns AI & AJ (RC Aileron & RC Elevator) which show how you pushed the right joystick.
Whenever it is showing 1684, that indicates you pushed the right joystick to its limit.
Doing that when the drone has no position holding and is close to obstacles is what caused the crash.

 

[Meta4]

This happened to me over water the same decision from a Honey. Lost everything, DJI knows how to take care of DJI. I do not own anymore DJI crap.

What happened to you over water?
Losing GPS doesn't cause a drone to fall from the sky.
You would have to have the data analysed to know if your incident had any similarity to the one discussed in this thread.

 

[SkyeHigh]

I noticed that you started to loose control exactly when the stoplight turned red, I'm wondering if there was signal interference at that low altitude from the stoplights

Really?

 

[Mike Mas]

The statement that the traffic light could not cause thee problem is In-correct, while I'm not saying it was the light, these traffic signals can be controlled remotely from fire and police department they have live transmitters and receivers. It certainly does not appear to be GPS affected, something got into the receiver and was making inputs, you can see each and every one of them. As I mentioned, flying a drone downtown is looking for a problem, the front end of the receiver can oly reject so much interference, once it reaches its threshold you'll lose control. Right after you got a few good hits you should have instantly lowered the throttle and landed

Mike

 

[Meta4]

The statement that the traffic light could not cause thee problem is In-correct, while I'm not saying it was the light, these traffic signals can be controlled remotely from fire and police department they have live transmitters and receivers.

Misinformation like this only confuses the issue more, and there's already too much misinformation in this thread.
What you've stated here is very, very wrong.
Interference might cause minor glitches in the video or signal reception but it cannot and does not cause the drone to fly in an uncontrolled fashion.

It certainly does not appear to be GPS affected, something got into the receiver and was making inputs, you can see each and every one of them.

The inputs that are visible in the flight data are exactly what the OP made with his joysticks.
The GPS problem is also very clearly seen in the data as I showed in post #74.

 

[wordzenpix]

Please tell me what data I need to supply. I'd appreciate having tech-knowledgable folks give me a clue on what caused my Spark's bizarre flyaway. I sent a lot of data multiple times to DJI who said I needed to "compile" it and resend. I never could figure out what they were asking for. I sent them all the telemetry data the Spark returned to the phone, even after it roosted way up in a red cedar a distance from Puget Sound, complete with video of the evergreen branches.

 

[Meta4]

Please tell me what data I need to supply. I'd appreciate having tech-knowledgable folks give me a clue on what caused my Spark's bizarre flyaway. I sent a lot of data multiple times to DJI who said I needed to "compile" it and resend. I never could figure out what they were asking for. I sent them all the telemetry data the Spark returned to the phone, even after it roosted way up in a red cedar a distance from Puget Sound, complete with video of the evergreen branches.

It would be a good idea to start a new thread to avoid cluttering this one with a different incidents.

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 on the flight data.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incidents.

Or just post the relevant txt files.

 

[AtortPhotography]

Don't have a SC myself but know it's android based so follow that link I gave you in post #4 & read under section 3. Then just hook the SC up to your computer find the correct location & copy them over, create a new post & use the "attach files" button ... after that all can stop speculating.

Well DJI is saying since the drone was "functional" just in ATTI mode it is pilot error. I guess we have to know how to fly a FPV drone when flying our DJI drones because I had enough satellites so I thought and just got totally crazy out of control in ATTI mode plus in a corridor with some winds. DJI never does a **** thing to help out their customers ever. Fine my fault but maybe look that I spend over $10k with you DJI this year alone maybe you can at least shave a hundred dollars off my bill or something to show some love...nah never. They give you 5% off and they act like that's a BIG deal. So over DJI service.