Mavic Air 1 dropped from the sky

[MrRobville]

Firstly, I hope these are the correct logs. I found out in hindsight that the phone I was using had its date and time set back to 2016 for some reason.

Yesterday I was performing a quick flight to inspect the roof of the house. I've done it before and is usually an uneventful procedure.
I fly the drone up one side of the roof to inspect it, then leave it hanging above the nook so that I can walk to the other side of the house and control it from there to view that side.

Only this time it went different. The drone flew fine the first half. Only now, as I was walking towards the other side of the house, I could hear the motors suddenly stop and saw on the video feed that the drone was coming crashing down from the roof. Thankfully it dropped into a flower bed, so it only had some small dents and scratches from the roof tiles as it slid down. After replacing the blades I was able to take it up again without issue.

Another person who was with me was observing the drone on the moment it dropped. He didn't see anything hitting the drone, nor did it make any odd movements- ruling out anything related to a RTH. According to him it simply just plummeted down like a brick without warning after hovering perfectly still.

I'm now doubting if I perhaps accidentally pressed the sticks together to cause a shutdown, but I really can't recall doing that. Also despite being out of sight while walking next to the house, it maintained video feed as I could see the crash before I reached the front of the house.

It's worth noting that the drone hasn't been flown for more than a year. One of the batteries also no longer took a charge. The other two batteries seemed to work fine and are not bloated.

 

[Cafguy]

then leave it hanging above the nook so that I can walk to the other side of the house and control it from there to view that side.

Why not land the Drone while you are changing positions I would say you probably moved a stick OR perhaps a gust of wind traveled over the roof and the Drone got caught in the Downdraft. Good on you for having a spotter. The wind can do funny things on a roof.

 

[MrRobville]

Convenience mostly since it's not a large house and the Mavic holds itself in place very well. When I took it up the second time, I let it hover in front of me so I could give it a good push a few times to see what it would do. Each time it snapped back right where it was. Wind was very mild at that time.

The curious thing is that according to the spotter nothing happened in advance. It really was like as if the power was cut (even though it wasn't since I still had video feed). It wasn't pushed or made any movement before it dropped. Just one moment hovering perfectly still, to falling like a brick the next. The propellers also only had slight scratches from sliding on the roof. No impact damage anywhere. I only replaced them to be safe.

Is it possible to tell from these logs if I've pressed the sticks to stop the motors? If it turns out that I simply made a stupid mistake by not paying attention to my thumbs, then I'd be relieved to know that caused it.

 

[Cafguy]

Post the logs here. Most occurrences like this can be attributed to slight finger movements or "bumping" the stick when you are not aware of it.

 

[MrRobville]

They're attached to the first post