Hello pilot community. I am trying to understand what happened during a recent, potentially dangerous incident. These are the facts:
- I initiated a flight in Litchi and completed two autonomous orbits without any issues or warnings
- while in the air, I switched to DJI GO 4 to do some additional photo work
- within a few seconds, a message flashed, indicating auto landing (this was NOT a restricted airspace)
- I switched to sport mode and tried to bail out of the forest but within a few seconds I was between tall trees so I let go of the controls and I lost connection
The area was a forested patch of wetland. Fortunately, the drone landed in a rough blueberry bush instead of the water nearby and survived, but the incident could have gone much worse if this happened over water, over private property, busy urban area etc.
After the incident, at a different location, I was about to test the drone but DJI GO 4 would block the drone from taking off, claiming a no-fly zone. I suspect that the bogus message may have been triggered by the fact that a DJI zone unlock was left ON accidentally in the controller from the previous day. Once the zone unlock (for a far away location) was turned OFF, the drone took off.
So, has anyone experienced a similar auto-land scenario, after an extended autonomous flight, which I assume would use the DJI engine under any third party UI, like Litchi, in this case? How did Litchi fly the drone for almost ten minutes but then GO 4 pushed it down into the swamp when I switched over? Why doesn't normal airspace cancel/override a selected but irrelevant or far away unlock zone ... if, that was the root cause of the forced, unsafe action. Why didn't GO 4 create a log record for the auto-landing incident? Litchi recorded the two orbits, but there is no log record of the actual incident just a screenshot of the moment when the drone disconnected. And perhaps most importantly, why can't we have an abort switch for forced landings? Often the "solution" to imaginary problems is worse than no action. This was at least the third forced landing that I recall in the past year and one of these could turn uglier in the future. In none of those three cases was the drone actually in a no-fly zone. What is the justification for not having at least a hover above ground option?
- I initiated a flight in Litchi and completed two autonomous orbits without any issues or warnings
- while in the air, I switched to DJI GO 4 to do some additional photo work
- within a few seconds, a message flashed, indicating auto landing (this was NOT a restricted airspace)
- I switched to sport mode and tried to bail out of the forest but within a few seconds I was between tall trees so I let go of the controls and I lost connection
The area was a forested patch of wetland. Fortunately, the drone landed in a rough blueberry bush instead of the water nearby and survived, but the incident could have gone much worse if this happened over water, over private property, busy urban area etc.
After the incident, at a different location, I was about to test the drone but DJI GO 4 would block the drone from taking off, claiming a no-fly zone. I suspect that the bogus message may have been triggered by the fact that a DJI zone unlock was left ON accidentally in the controller from the previous day. Once the zone unlock (for a far away location) was turned OFF, the drone took off.
So, has anyone experienced a similar auto-land scenario, after an extended autonomous flight, which I assume would use the DJI engine under any third party UI, like Litchi, in this case? How did Litchi fly the drone for almost ten minutes but then GO 4 pushed it down into the swamp when I switched over? Why doesn't normal airspace cancel/override a selected but irrelevant or far away unlock zone ... if, that was the root cause of the forced, unsafe action. Why didn't GO 4 create a log record for the auto-landing incident? Litchi recorded the two orbits, but there is no log record of the actual incident just a screenshot of the moment when the drone disconnected. And perhaps most importantly, why can't we have an abort switch for forced landings? Often the "solution" to imaginary problems is worse than no action. This was at least the third forced landing that I recall in the past year and one of these could turn uglier in the future. In none of those three cases was the drone actually in a no-fly zone. What is the justification for not having at least a hover above ground option?
