Mavic 3 auto forced landed and lost my drone!

[MS Coast]

Frylikebird I totally agree with all your posts. It is DJI's fault that you lost your drone.

#1. Who reads owners manuals?

I think I found your problem.

 

[Meta4]

But there's no reason to initiate a forced landing, when you are CONNECTED, and in control. And DJI can tell if the drone is connected to the RC. Also, there should be a way to abort a forced landing, so you don't have to keep pushing up on the stick, which makes it hard to fly.

Just like there is no reason your car stops in the middle of the road if you keep driving long after the fuel warning light comes on.

Some here have said that it only does a forced landing when it just has enough battery to land. That's not true at all.

The reason some say that is because it has proved to be true many times.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

OP hasn't posted since his last post here Nov 2022, and no flight log, even after he had recovered from an illness.
Hopefully they are all good health wise since and now.

As an almost useless thread without the flight log, if the OP now (or anyone else is ever in the same situation), post #4 had the link to how to get your flight log nd post it up with your request for crash analysis.
Certainly it's the only way to get to whatever accurate answers are needed.

 

[solidhouse]

The best thing to do in order to avoid this is turn the auto landing off if the parameters. I’ve almost lost my drone a few times due to auto low battery landing.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

The best thing to do in order to avoid this is turn the auto landing off if the parameters. I’ve almost lost my drone a few times due to auto low battery landing.

Auto landing on critical low battery can't be turned off, can it ?

 

[Meta4]

The best thing to do in order to avoid this is turn the auto landing off if the parameters. I’ve almost lost my drone a few times due to auto low battery landing.

The best way to avoid this is to fly like you would if it was a real plane.
Allow a comfortable safety margin and land before you have to switch to the emergency reserve tank.

 

[MS Coast]

The best thing to do in order to avoid this is turn the auto landing off if the parameters. I’ve almost lost my drone a few times due to auto low battery landing.

The best thing to do is the fly the aircraft within its limits and in accordance with the way it's designed to operate. And to leave a sensible margin in the flight time to account for unexpected issues.

The auto landing feature is a known aspect of the aircraft's characteristics that the pilot must respect. Or suffer the consequences. The pilot has the ability, and the responsibility, to avoid having it engage.

I’ve almost lost my drone a few times due to auto low battery landing.

I'd say that the cause was operation that resulted in a low battery level at too great a distance from the intended landing point.

 

[Starz]

How many people read the full owners manual of everything they buy?

I pick and choose on the things that are acquired. On things that fly, I read em all.

 

[Suren]

Frylikebird I totally agree with all your posts. It is DJI's fault that you lost your drone.

#1. Who reads owners manuals? How many people read the full owners manual of everything they buy? That's why they have quick start guides. When I got my mavic pro in 2017, I just watched a few YouTube videos to learn how to fly it. I certainly did not read the owners manual. I don't even think my Mavic 3 came with an owners manual.
I had a similar incident a few months ago. I wanted to complete a mission. It had enough battery to fully complete the mission and do a RTH and safely land at the home point. But when the battery got to 10% it started a forced landing. I was in shock! I did push the stick up so I could land on a street, but I still almost crashed. I could of gotten run over by a car, or hit wires, and crashed. As it turned out, I landed on the next street over from my house. I also had never used find my drone, so I just had to look. It turns out passersbys found it, and took it, so by the time I got there, it was gone. Fortunately, they saw me walking with the remote, so I got my drone back.
But there's no reason to initiate a forced landing, when you are CONNECTED, and in control. And DJI can tell if the drone is connected to the RC. Also, there should be a way to abort a forced landing, so you don't have to keep pushing up on the stick, which makes it hard to fly.
Some here have said that it only does a forced landing when it just has enough battery to land. That's not true at all. I had 5 times enough battery to land when it did a forced landing.
Frylikebird I'm sorry you've gotten such bad treatment from this board. I agree they they seem like they work for DJI.

I can't understand why anyone would let their drone force land at 10% battery when it is away from you by a few streets. I had my drone 1.5km away as I was returning into the wind and the drone had used a lot of battery on the return because winds had changed since flying out, my drone started the normal auto land but all I did was hold the stick up which kept its altitude and continued to fly forward as I was doing and drone landed by me at 3% battery - no sweat no issues.

 

[Deleted member 170519]

Auto landing on critical low battery can't be turned off, can it ?

Not that I am aware of.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Not that I am aware of.

Thanks, I'm still using older model DJI drones and Go4, haven't really mucked about with various menu functions for a long time, but figure the critical battery forced landing isn't something one can turn on or off.
I can't see DJI allowing this, for obvious reasons.

 

[cporter]

thanks for all the tips and encouraging words. The point is that Auto Force Landing is a self destruction mode, it doesn't help with anything, it literally destroys drones. DJI knows that with 3 to 4 minutes of battery left it should just let operator take full control to fly back home or able to do RTH again. People do fly over water, roads, rail tracks, mountains, fores, and even people. They need to disable-able force landing. Losing a battery health or losing a drone with the battery all together? Silly. I wish there's law suit.

It isn’t necessarily self destruct, you just happened to be positioned near a swamp on the rth path. Avoid that, arrange your shoot so the drone is in a good area to land as the battery drains. It is auto return because it is a controlled descent. If you run it too long and it does an uncontrolled descent it destroys the drone and possibly hurts someone or damages their property..

 

[GadgetGuy]

Not that I am aware of.

Auto landing on critical low battery can't be turned off, can it ?

Auto landing can, indeed, be turned off in the parameter settings. I now have it off on mine. Makes landing at below 10% remaining battery far less stressful, without having to constantly fight the descent with full left stick.

 

[shb]

I can't understand why anyone would let their drone force land at 10% battery when it is away from you by a few streets. I had my drone 1.5km away as I was returning into the wind and the drone had used a lot of battery on the return because winds had changed since flying out, my drone started the normal auto land but all I did was hold the stick up which kept its altitude and continued to fly forward as I was doing and drone landed by me at 3% battery - no sweat no issues.

Because I had never experienced a forced landing before, and didn't know how to deal with it. I had trouble flying because everytime I stopped pushing up, it went down. I wasn't used to that. Some panic too. If I had to do it again I would make it home.

 

[shb]

Just like there is no reason your car stops in the middle of the road if you keep driving long after the fuel warning light comes on.

The reason some say that is because it has proved to be true many times.

I just watched another range test, and it did it between 9 and 10 percent. I think that's when it does it. Battery difference between 400 and 0 feet wouldn't be that great.

 

[shb]

I think I found your problem.

I just looked through the 64 page owners manual, and it says nothing about forced landings. If it does, tell me what page.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I just looked through the 64 page owners manual, and it says nothing about forced landings. If it does, tell me what page.

What drone? If a Mavic 3 see the last two paragraphs of "Low Battery RTH"
If not the mavic 3 then search the manual for a sentence such as
"Auto landing cannot be canceled but the remote controller can be used to alter the direction and the speed of descent of the aircraft during landing." or a part of it e.g. "landing cannot be canceled".

 

[shb]

What drone? If a Mavic 3 see the last two paragraphs of "Low Battery RTH"
If not the mavic 3 then search the manual for a sentence such as
"Auto landing cannot be canceled but the remote controller can be used to alter the direction and the speed of descent of the aircraft during landing." or a part of it e.g. "landing cannot be canceled".

The thread is about mavic 3. What page? Ok, I found it. It's on page 18. But what it says isn't true. It says it will auto land when there is only enough battery to land. But in fact, it does this at 9 or 10 percent battery, way more than you need to land, even from 400 feet.

 

[MS Coast]

The thread is about mavic 3. What page? Ok, I found it. It's on page 18.

We finally agree that the feature is documented and known. But you missed some some other useful information on that same page in the manual.

But what it says isn't true. It says it will auto land when there is only enough battery to land. But in fact, it does this at 9 or 10 percent battery, way more than you need to land, even from 400 feet.

Another gem of information there in the manual was pointed out in posts #18 and #19 six months ago by @GadgetGuy and @Yorkshire_Pud, respectively. And post #20 from @CanadaDrone pointed out issues related to remaining flight time estimates.



There's an auto-land override feature that allows the operator to use any remaining flight time to select a better landing area.

So, we can amend the last item in the sequence of events leading to the crash in post #14.

• To preclude the danger to people and property of a two-pound object free falling after a total power loss DJI very wisely and prudently included a fail-safe landing feature. It lands the drone in a controlled manner when a critical battery level is reached. Having calculated that the drone had reached that critical point, the software initiated a fail-safe landing, minimizing damage to the drone and the danger to others and their property.
  
  You failed to employ the override feature and the auto landing proceeded normally

 

[shb]

We finally agree that the feature is documented and known. But you missed some some other useful information on that same page in the manual.



Another gem of information there in the manual was pointed out in posts #18 and #19 six months ago by @GadgetGuy and @Yorkshire_Pud, respectively. And post #20 from @CanadaDrone pointed out issues related to remaining flight time estimates.

View attachment 161104

There's an auto-land override feature that allows the operator to use any remaining flight time to select a better landing area.

So, we can amend the last item in the sequence of events leading to the crash in post #14.

• To preclude the danger to people and property of a two-pound object free falling after a total power loss DJI very wisely and prudently included a fail-safe landing feature. It lands the drone in a controlled manner when a critical battery level is reached. Having calculated that the drone had reached that critical point, the software initiated a fail-safe landing, minimizing damage to the drone and the danger to others and their property.
  
  You failed to employ the override feature and the auto landing proceeded normally

Obviously not everyone will know about the override, and some people, like the OP, will lose their drones. As I said before, if the operator is still controlling the drone, there's no need for a forced landing. Now if the drone is disconnected, fine, do the forced landing. I think one reason DJI may have put this in, is their lawyers told them to, in case someone gets hurt. Then, in court they can say they wanted to land, but the pilot kept pushing up the stick. Again, if you're in control, why shouldn't you be able to abort a forced landing. And I think the word forced is more accurate than saying automatic.