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Mavic Air flew away out of control and crashed

YOBACK

Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2022
Messages
6
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Age
27
Location
Poland
Hello,
today I had a terrible day of my holidays. I was on a nive viewpoint in the middle of nowhere in Montenegro, launched drone, he just started, flew 1m upwards, and I totally lost control over it. He just accelerated really really quick to the maximum(it looked like a sport mode, but he was on cinematic), I couldnt make anything, he was not listening for controller movements, return to home was not responding.

He just accelerated to the maximum and went straight into the rocky mountain. I've found it, but gimbal and antenna is gone. Drone is totally damaged.
I tried to get my data flight records, but I cannot find any of today. There are just logs from yesterday, and today none. Also my video isnt available, because its crashed too :/

Do you have any ideas how to get data flights from today? What should I make with this drone now? Its out of warranty, so I think it's over, but thats sad that its literally not my fault. He just went crazy :(


@EDIT I can see flight record in DJI App but cannot see any DAT files within this data range. Drone just flew away with 24m per second
 
Last edited:
I can see flight record in DJI App
Follow the instructions near the bottom of the page here to locate the TXT flight log on your mobile device. You can also upload your TXT file at that link to view the flight data. If you'd like some feedback, post the link to your uploaded flight log here.
 
Follow the instructions near the bottom of the page here to locate the TXT flight log on your mobile device. You can also upload your TXT file at that link to view the flight data. If you'd like some feedback, post the link to your uploaded flight log here.
Thanks for information, but I've done everything to find these files. I see the folder, I see flight logs, but I have no flight logs from yesterday - there should be at least 3-4 logs. In app I can see them easily, but in folder files there are missing ones.

Is there any possibility to download them from cloud?
 
Look at the picture below ... did your drone point in the direction of the hand drawn arrow when it started to flyaway?

Where was your drone placed when you powered it on (not took off... when you powered it on)?

(Click on the picture to make it larger)
Screenshot_20220724-113600_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
Look at the picture below ... did your drone point in the direction of the hand drawn arrow when it started to flyaway?

Where was your drone placed when you powered it on (not took off... when you powered it on)?

(Click on the picture to make it larger)
View attachment 152256
No, the drone was pointing to south east when it was in air waiting for me to check if the exposure is okay. Then he just accelerated and moved forward and little bit to the right.

Drone was turned on exactly in place where it was launched. I problably launched drone and then conencted controller, turned app on phone and connected drone
 
No, the drone was pointing to south east when it was in air waiting for me to check if the exposure is okay. Then he just accelerated and moved forward and little bit to the right.
You had poor GPS reception and didn't wait for GPS and for the drone to record a home point before launching.
In normal flight that's not a good thing to do.
But it didn't cause the big problem in the flight.

The incident you described and what shows in the flight data is a classic yaw error incident.

The yaw error was set up when you powered on the drone somewhere that magnetic interference caused the compass to be deflected and give an incorrect reading.
The gyro sensor in the IMU takes its initial (and incorrect) directional values from the compass.
As you move away from the magnetic interference, the compass returns to normal, but the Gyro sensor is giving incorrect directional data.

Later in the flight when GPS is working and the drone has turned away from its initial heading, the flight controller can't reconcile the difference between the directional data from the compass and what it calculates from the GPS.
It senses that it has moved off course and tries to correct.
But every correction puts it further away from where it wants to be and the drone quickly picks up speed and races away on a perfectly curved flight path.

Yours started slowly as the drone started to get location data and rapidly picked up speed as the location data became better just before the home point was recorded.
At the end of the data, the drone was flying at 48.5 mph without any joystick input.

The data indicates that the drone was pointing toward the west at launch.
This confirms that the compass was deflected by magnetic interference at startup.
 
Drone was turned on exactly in place where it was launched
Any metal nearby where the drone was powered on and/or launched?
 
Any metal nearby where the drone was powered on and/or launched?
The drone was like 15meters from car, and thats it. It was in place, where you have like 1km to nearby village with 10houses. It was like in the middle of nowhere.

Usually, when i was launching drone with something made of metal nearby, I had to recalibrate compass. Now it wasnt the case.
 
The drone was like 15meters from car
That wouldn't be an issue -- unless you did something like sit the drone on the car, power it on, and then walk 15 meters over to the launch site.

Usually, when i was launching drone with something made of metal nearby, I had to recalibrate compass.
That calibration prompt is a sign that you need to move away from the nearby metal object. You should power the drone down, move to a different area, and power it back up.
 
You had poor GPS reception and didn't wait for GPS and for the drone to record a home point before launching.
In normal flight that's not a good thing to do.
But it didn't cause the big problem in the flight.

The incident you described and what shows in the flight data is a classic yaw error incident.

The yaw error was set up when you powered on the drone somewhere that magnetic interference caused the compass to be deflected and give an incorrect reading.
The gyro sensor in the IMU takes its initial (and incorrect) directional values from the compass.
As you move away from the magnetic interference, the compass returns to normal, but the Gyro sensor is giving incorrect directional data.

Later in the flight when GPS is working and the drone has turned away from its initial heading, the flight controller can't reconcile the difference between the directional data from the compass and what it calculates from the GPS.
It senses that it has moved off course and tries to correct.
But every correction puts it further away from where it wants to be and the drone quickly picks up speed and races away on a perfectly curved flight path.

Yours started slowly as the drone started to get location data and rapidly picked up speed as the location data became better just before the home point was recorded.
At the end of the data, the drone was flying at 48.5 mph without any joystick input.

The data indicates that the drone was pointing toward the west at launch.
This confirms that the compass was deflected by magnetic interference at startup.
Thanks for detailed answer. Now it's pretty clear what happened. I thought that I should be able to coreccr the flight when he was trying to "persist" its location.
That wouldn't be an issue -- unless you did something like sit the drone on the car, power it on, and then walk 15 meters over to the launch site.
Thats not the case. I always power up drone in place where it will be launched to the air.

Well, last thing I can do now is to sell some parts that are not damaged, and start to save some money for new one.

Thanks guys for all answers.
 
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Thanks for detailed answer. Now it's pretty clear what happened. I thought that I should be able to coreccr the flight when he was trying to "persist" its location.

Thats not the case. I always power up drone in place where it will be launched to the air.

Well, last thing I can do now is to sell some parts that are not damaged, and start to save some money for new one.

Thanks guys for all answers.
So sorry for your loss. No insurance or DJI refresh?
 

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