Mavic 2 Pro fly away upon pressing return home button.

[Honeybush Swami]

Of course it's the correct log.
It shows the drone crashing into the water.
There won't be any more after that.

what is the DAT?

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

A very odd flight and conflicting analysis vs pilot / witness accounts.
I do believe what you are saying @Honeybush Swami and I wish you luck in your search for the M2P.
I think the DAT file (the dat has much more data / info on the aircraft systems) for the M2 is only readable by DJI, not sure if there is one on the aircraft only, or if there might be one in the device.
If there is (was) one on the device, they often disappear if the info is auto synced to DJI, then only they have access to it.

 

[Meta4]

I understand this and this is why it is frustrating. I am determined to find the drone at this point.

The drone was all lit up and over our heads moving slowly and it was just getting dark. It was not a UFO, it was my drone.
I really wouldn't be pushing this if it was just operator error. I would be embarrassed and would not even post!
I hope you can stay tuned to find out the conclusion!

The drone was autodescending and you were holding the throttle full down to make it descend even faster.
That's a pretty good indication of the level of your disorientation at the time.
You can't have been watching the lights of the drone descend to water level from >230 ft above the water for 38 seconds, or you wouldn't have kept the throttle held down to speed the descent.

Did you see the lights of the drone rise from the water to 100 ft higher than the launch point and come towards you?
If your drone was coming home it would have stopped 100 ft above the home point and descended there, not continued flying further away.
That's what RTH does.
How can you be sure that whatever you saw actually was your drone and not a distant plane etc?

You have a big problem arguing against the data.
There are too many impossibilities in the version that you hope is true.

 

[Meta4]

A very odd flight and conflicting analysis vs pilot / witness accounts.
I do believe what you are saying @Honeybush Swami and I wish you luck in your search for the M2P.
I think the DAT file (the dat has much more data / info on the aircraft systems) for the M2 is only readable by DJI, not sure if there is one on the aircraft only, or if there might be one in the device.
If there is (was) one on the device, they often disappear if the info is auto synced to DJI, then only they have access to it.

Without a signal connection, the device DAT won't tell anything about flight after signal was lost.

 

[Honeybush Swami]

How can you be sure that whatever you saw actually was your drone and not a distant plane etc?

It was the drone. about 100 ft over our heads moving slowly. I confirmed this with the police officer.

 

[Meta4]

It was the drone. about 100 ft over our heads moving slowly. I confirmed this with the police officer.

Then why didn't it land at the homepoint?
To explain that you'd need more impossible things to be true.
The data shows that there was no change to the homepoint during the flight.

And relying on a police officer to corroborate your story counts for nothing.
Was he closely watching the screen and your controls?
Has he analysed the data?
Does he have any drone flying experience?

If you want to take this any further, you have to do more than repeating your assertion that the drone came back and kept flying.
You have to find a problem in the data.
I haven't found any, but I see a lot of holes in your version of events.

 

[Meta4]

But all this could be easily answered if the drone had a honing device on it. As you know, the find my drone feature is useless without communication with the controller.
And my insurance is contingent on me retrieving the drone, so the lack of a honing device is even more necessary.

Homing devices aren't any help when they are on the bottom of a lake.

My friends cat has a little chip imbedded to find her, why does the drone not have that????!!!

The microchip in the cat gives the identity of the cat when a suitable scanner is placed within inches of the microchip
It won't tell you where the cat is.

 

[sar104]

It was the drone. about 100 ft over our heads moving slowly. I confirmed this with the police officer.

Okay - this thread is going in circles. As has been pointed out several times, you need to look closely at the log data. At 978 seconds into the flight you inadvertently requested auto land, and the aircraft entered that mode. It commences a 3 m/s descent which subsequently slowed to 1 m/s until you applied full down throttle for some reason at 1008 seconds, when it went back to 3 m/s until it hit the water.



In terms of horizontal motion, you let it descend vertically with no stick inputs until 1006 seconds, when you applied full forward elevator. It accelerated to 12 m/s before hitting the water.



Looking at the last few seconds of the flight, it was pitched forwards at 15°, flying forwards at 12 m/s, and descending at 3 m/s. It hit the water at 1014.8 seconds, arresting its downward descent, and flipping forwards to a pitch of 71° and a forward velocity of 6 m/s before data transmission stopped.



These events are completely unambiguous, with no inconsistencies. The data record a high-speed impact with the water, from which the aircraft did not recover.

Did your application of full down throttle at 1008 seconds happen when you thought that it was flying over you, or was that for some other reason?

Whatever you and your police officer saw flying over you - it was not your aircraft. Most likely there was another drone in the area.

 

[Honeybush Swami]

I am not going to deny what this info says. And I can not believe there was another drone in the area flying it over our heads.
As it was overhead in the parking lot, I was pushing down repeatedly in frustration. It was not responding.

all this is making me a bit crazy because it is inconstant of my lived experience! And having cooperated my experience with the police officer, I feel even crazier. We both watched it approach from the lake and fly over the parking lot.

I thanks everyone for the help in all of this!

 

[sar104]

I am not going to deny what this info says. And I can not believe there was another drone in the area flying it over our heads.
As it was overhead in the parking lot, I was pushing down repeatedly in frustration. It was not responding.

all this is making me a bit crazy because it is inconstant of my lived experience! And having cooperated my experience with the police officer, I feel even crazier. We both watched it approach from the lake and fly over the parking lot.

I thanks everyone for the help in all of this!

I'm not clear why you are rejecting the obvious, consistent solution - you were watching a different drone, and that is why it was not responding to your down throttle command. But as that was happening, your own drone was following the command, and descended into the lake. Why is it so difficult to accept that there was another drone in the area?

 

[Honeybush Swami]

Update!

I want to thank you all for help in this and I hope you can stay tuned to help find out what really happened in they situation.

I find it quite unlikely that someone was flying a Mavic 2 pro to exactly where I was with the police officer on that evening, but it is possible.

 

[Honeybush Swami]

I have not retrieved the drone and have had many thoughts on the situation.

According to the fight info, the drone is in the lake.

But the evidence as I and the police officer saw it was the drone came to the home point and slowly flew into the forest.

I think it a very slim possibility that someone was flying a drone to the very place that I was bringing mine into, but it is a possiblity.!
I guess...

I asked DJI if they could see if there was anyone else flying a drone at that very time in the area.
Is this possible for them to find out seeing the App reports back??

Any Idea on how to find out if anyone was flying a drone in that area at that time?????

Again, I and the police officer watched "A" drone over us that was not responding to my controller. So it is possible I was trying to land the drone that was over us by pressing down on the controller, but meanwhile I was crashing "MY" drone into the water.

What are the chances??? I did not hear another drone prior to this incident.
It is a strange mystery that I hope to solve! The help from this forum has been great and I hope you all can continue to help!!!

Thank you all so much!

Stay tuned,
Todd

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Update!

I want to thank you all for help in this and I hope you can stay tuned to help find out what really happened in they situation.

I find it quite unlikely that someone was flying a Mavic 2 pro to exactly where I was with the police officer on that evening, but it is possible.

Hey good luck to you Todd (just read your last post above).
Either way your experience is a learning curve to yourself and many others reading the thread.

 

[sar104]

I have not retrieved the drone and have had many thoughts on the situation.

According to the fight info, the drone is in the lake.

But the evidence as I and the police officer saw it was the drone came to the home point and slowly flew into the forest.

I think it a very slim possibility that someone was flying a drone to the very place that I was bringing mine into, but it is a possiblity.!
I guess...

I asked DJI if they could see if there was anyone else flying a drone at that very time in the area.
Is this possible for them to find out seeing the App reports back??

Any Idea on how to find out if anyone was flying a drone in that area at that time?????

Again, I and the police officer watched "A" drone over us that was not responding to my controller. So it is possible I was trying to land the drone that was over us by pressing down on the controller, but meanwhile I was crashing "MY" drone into the water.

What are the chances??? I did not hear another drone prior to this incident.
It is a strange mystery that I hope to solve! The help from this forum has been great and I hope you all can continue to help!!!

Thank you all so much!

Stay tuned,
Todd

While you may think that it is unlikely that there was another drone flying, it is far more likely than the alternative that requires all of the following to have happened:

1. The detailed flight log is completely incorrect, even though it is consistent and accounts for the outcome;
2. Your M2P disconnected from the app for no apparent reason;
3. Your M2P disconnected from the RC and ignored your stick input when in plain sight above you.

I have looked at several previous events similar to yours, where a distracted and confused pilot mistook a different aircraft for his own. In your case it was even worse - as far as I can tell you simply abandoned the controller for 30 seconds in order to move your vehicle, having pressed "LAND" rather than "RTH" and without bothering to verify the requested flight action. Then when you returned your attention to the controller, you still failed to notice that it was in autoland mode, failed to notice any of the telemetry that showed its location, distance and height that put it out over the lake, and fixated instead on controlling what you assumed to be your aircraft, but wasn't, crashing yours into the lake in the process.

DJI is not going to tell you about other drones that were flying, even if the flight in question was a DJI aircraft and the flight log had been uploaded to the DJI servers.

While that's obviously not what you want to hear, it's clearly what happened, and there isn't going to be any more information unless you want to go diving in the lake. There is no mystery here - you are simply in denial.

 

[Meta4]

While you may think that it is unlikely that there was another drone flying, it is far more likely than the alternative that requires all of the following to have happened:

1. The detailed flight log is completely incorrect, even though it is consistent and accounts for the outcome;
2. Your M2P disconnected from the app for no apparent reason;
3. Your M2P disconnected from the RC and ignored your stick input when in plain sight above you.

And ...
4. Your drone after miraculously rising from the lake after crashing, returned to above the home point but didn't stop and continued flying on past it.

 

[sar104]

And ...
4. Your drone after miraculously rising from the lake after crashing, returned to above the home point but didn't stop and continued flying on past it.

Yes - I thought of adding that as a separate possibility, but it's just too far fetched. Miraculous, even.

 

[slup]

... but it's just too far fetched. Miraculous, even.

No, not at all... if you concider your point 1.

 

[bfuqua]

I am amazed at what you all are able to glean from the flight logs. And even more amazed at the patience you have when dealing with those you help that are in denial. I appreciate the fact you are willing to help others to the degree you do with nothing expected in return.
Thank you for the knowledge you share.

 

[AMann]

My guess is the log stopped when the drone flipped over upon impacting the water (upward obstacle sensor blocked).

And, fresh water is generally non-conductive (I'll qualify that with - we are talking about low voltage here). Things do not short out instantly like you presume. Take your trusty non-waterproof flashlight - turn it on - and drop it into your filled kitchen sink, record how long it takes for the torch to dim. Then let's talk.

There’s a Instructible project that uses basic brushless motors to make an Arduino sub, they are not treated with anything except rinse with distilled water after use. The inside of the sub is waterproof protecting the main board and battery, but the rest of it is not. The motors actually last for a year or so with heavy use in pools. There have been several instances of users here recovering their drones from freshwater landings, most did have some type of issues like lost sensors and errors of one type or another. My dumb brother dropped a Mavic into a river after hitting a branch, and that one still flies too. Not all is lost after a freshwater landing, it’s not instant death, but it certainly isn’t a good thing!

 

[Rich_fpv]

I distinctly remember seeing a video of a similar event (mp2) where the guy thought his drone had been hacked and stolen. Turned out the drone he was looking at was another pilots mavic and in his attempts to lower the other pilots drone with down left stick he crashed his own drone into the cliff below him.