Mavic Air seemingly flew away

[ddublu]

Took off Monday evening after flying 5 batteries around the Chicago waterfront (walked from Navy Pier to Soldier Field and back). This was the last flight of the day. As soon as I took off, the aircraft went nuts and just took off. For what it's worth, I have over 100 hrs of flight experience across the P2, P3, P4, P4 Pro, Mavic Pro, Mavic Air, Inspire 1, Inspire Pro and Inspire 2. I say that to simply share that I am not a new remote pilot. I searched for a few hours with no luck as I REALLY wanted the footage from that day.

Here is a Dropbox link containing my flight replay. Dropbox - mavic air.MOV

Here is the flight log - DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Today, I received the analysis back from DJI and this is what they said:

"1. The aircraft was piloted under GPS mode after took off, and responded to the pilot's control well; The Home Point: 41.8906545 -87.6125119;
2. T=00:29, H=24.7 m, D=195.4 m, the warning of High Wind Velocity popped up;
3. T=00:39, H=16.4 m, D=323.4 m, Battery 56%, the pilot pulled down the throttle stick, moved the rudder stick leftward, pushed the pitch stick forward, and moved the aileron stick leftward fully, then the flight record ended. The last recorded coordinate: 41.8877608 -87.6129421.

The aircraft might crash with obstacles. The record ended without any sign of abnormality, so we could not verify what happened afterward."

What I can't understand is why the aircraft took off and spun directly facing me and then had some IMU/heading issues and essentially flew away. I would NEVER take off and point the aircraft at me to begin my flight. They made zero mention of the IMU/Heading errors that were popping up but did mention the high wind velocity (which we all know pop up during the calmest of days). I would say there were 8-10mph winds, at most. The notification came up, "please switch to ATTI mode if craft behave abnormally" except that isn't an option (and would have possibly saved me here).

They've offered me 30% off of a replacement.

What do you folks think about what you see here?

 

[Irish-apple]

Took off Monday evening after flying 5 batteries around the Chicago waterfront (walked from Navy Pier to Soldier Field and back). This was the last flight of the day. As soon as I took off, the aircraft went nuts and just took off. For what it's worth, I have over 100 hrs of flight experience across the P2, P3, P4, P4 Pro, Mavic Pro, Mavic Air, Inspire 1, Inspire Pro and Inspire 2. I say that to simply share that I am not a new remote pilot. I searched for a few hours with no luck as I REALLY wanted the footage from that day.

Here is a Dropbox link containing my flight replay. Dropbox - mavic air.MOV

Here is the flight log - DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Today, I received the analysis back from DJI and this is what they said:

"1. The aircraft was piloted under GPS mode after took off, and responded to the pilot's control well; The Home Point: 41.8906545 -87.6125119;
2. T=00:29, H=24.7 m, D=195.4 m, the warning of High Wind Velocity popped up;
3. T=00:39, H=16.4 m, D=323.4 m, Battery 56%, the pilot pulled down the throttle stick, moved the rudder stick leftward, pushed the pitch stick forward, and moved the aileron stick leftward fully, then the flight record ended. The last recorded coordinate: 41.8877608 -87.6129421.

The aircraft might crash with obstacles. The record ended without any sign of abnormality, so we could not verify what happened afterward."

What I can't understand is why the aircraft took off and spun directly facing me and then had some IMC/heading issues and essentially flew away. I would NEVER take off and point the aircraft at me to begin my flight. They made zero mention of the IMU/Heading errors that were popping up but did mention the high wind velocity (which we all know pop up during the calmest of days). I would say there were 8-10mph winds, at most. The notification came up, "please switch to ATTI mode if craft behave abnormally" except that isn't an option (and would have possibly saved me here).

They've offered me 30% off of a replacement.

What do you folks think about what you see here?

30% ? do you have care refresh ?how old is it ?

seems like there dodging a bullet there if I were you I be fighting for this one buddy unless the gurus here spot something you seem to know what your doing and so I cant see you doing anything wrong ..

that high wind velocity pops up if a fly farts near my aircraft lately

 

[ddublu]

30% ? do you have care refresh ?how old is it ?

seems like there dodging a bullet there if I were you I be fighting for this one buddy unless the gurus here spot something you seem to know what your doing and so I cant see you doing anything wrong ..

that high wind velocity pops up if a fly farts near my aircraft lately

Totally agree with the notifications..I get them all of the time with my Inspire 2 and they are completely pointless. I purchased this on March 1.

 

[Irish-apple]

Totally agree with the notifications..I get them all of the time with my Inspire 2 and they are completely pointless. I purchased this on March 1.

I be looking for a replacement then unless the gurus here find something wrong or different .. mmmmm ! good luck with this

 

[msinger]

What I can't understand is why the aircraft took off and spun directly facing me and then had some IMC/heading issues and essentially flew away.

Did you take off from a concrete sidewalk?

 

[ddublu]

Did you take off from a concrete sidewalk?

Yes.

 

[swooshdave]

Did you check the compass heading on the map before taking off? Sounds like you were in a hurry and that seems to be one of the major contributing factors in these incidents.

 

[ddublu]

Did you check the compass heading on the map before taking off? Sounds like you were in a hurry and that seems to be one of the major contributing factors in these incidents.

Yes, as I always do. Also, I was far from being in a hurry.

 

[MavicCF]

Which direction was the Mavic facing when it took off?

 

[ddublu]

Which direction was the Mavic facing when it took off?

Pointing directly away from me, as any aircraft is when I fly.

 

[msinger]

Pointing directly away from me, as any aircraft is when I fly.

Is this the direction it was pointed?

 

[ddublu]

Is this the direction it was pointed?

View attachment 38654

It sure was and I was standing about where the second "c" in Chicago is.

 

[MavicCF]

It sure was and I was standing about where the second "c" in Chicago is.

I'm away from my computer currently, but from what I looked at earlier, it definetly seemed to have been a compass problem.
There was a IMU exemption error that popped up, and the crafy was not responding appropriately to your inputs. Also, I believe that the IMU's calculated path deviated a fair amount from the GPS one.
Hopefully @msinger or @sar104 can verify this.

 

[Scoobywrx05]

And that’s why you have insurance. I mean it’s obvious it had some kinda problem to do that. Dji will never willingly admit to it being a faulty bird unless it’s totally obvious. Get your insurance check and buy another one or something different.

 

[ddublu]

And that’s why you have insurance. I mean it’s obvious it had some kinda problem to do that. Dji will never willingly admit to it being a faulty bird unless it’s totally obvious. Get your insurance check and buy another one or something different.

Thanks for the advice. I have insurance but choose to not pay for hull. I'll continue to take my chances based on previous experience but that doesn't mean I will simply flop at the first offer with no pilot error.

 

[msinger]

It sure was and I was standing about where the second "c" in Chicago is.

Just to confirm -- you said you were standing behind the aircraft and it was pointing directly away from you at takeoff. I'm assuming you mean it was pointed in this direction:




The video you uploaded above shows the aircraft was pointed in this direction (toward N. Lake Shore Dr.):




Which is accurate?

 

[ddublu]

Just to confirm -- you said you were standing behind the aircraft and it was pointing directly away from you at takeoff. I'm assuming you mean it was pointed in this direction:

View attachment 38674


The video you uploaded above shows the aircraft was pointed in this direction (toward N. Lake Shore Dr.):

View attachment 38675


Which is accurate?

The second one is accurate but I was standing directly in line with the aircraft.

 

[msinger]

And then what did you do after taking off? Feel free to give us as many details as you can remember.

 

[sar104]

Took off Monday evening after flying 5 batteries around the Chicago waterfront (walked from Navy Pier to Soldier Field and back). This was the last flight of the day. As soon as I took off, the aircraft went nuts and just took off. For what it's worth, I have over 100 hrs of flight experience across the P2, P3, P4, P4 Pro, Mavic Pro, Mavic Air, Inspire 1, Inspire Pro and Inspire 2. I say that to simply share that I am not a new remote pilot. I searched for a few hours with no luck as I REALLY wanted the footage from that day.

Here is a Dropbox link containing my flight replay. Dropbox - mavic air.MOV

Here is the flight log - DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Today, I received the analysis back from DJI and this is what they said:

"1. The aircraft was piloted under GPS mode after took off, and responded to the pilot's control well; The Home Point: 41.8906545 -87.6125119;
2. T=00:29, H=24.7 m, D=195.4 m, the warning of High Wind Velocity popped up;
3. T=00:39, H=16.4 m, D=323.4 m, Battery 56%, the pilot pulled down the throttle stick, moved the rudder stick leftward, pushed the pitch stick forward, and moved the aileron stick leftward fully, then the flight record ended. The last recorded coordinate: 41.8877608 -87.6129421.

The aircraft might crash with obstacles. The record ended without any sign of abnormality, so we could not verify what happened afterward."

What I can't understand is why the aircraft took off and spun directly facing me and then had some IMC/heading issues and essentially flew away. I would NEVER take off and point the aircraft at me to begin my flight. They made zero mention of the IMU/Heading errors that were popping up but did mention the high wind velocity (which we all know pop up during the calmest of days). I would say there were 8-10mph winds, at most. The notification came up, "please switch to ATTI mode if craft behave abnormally" except that isn't an option (and would have possibly saved me here).

They've offered me 30% off of a replacement.

What do you folks think about what you see here?

As @msinger mentioned above, some clarification might help here. You said that the aircraft took off on a heading of SW or so, and then spun around to face you. Looking first at the IMU yaw data, that does appear to be the case:



The IMU yaw initialized at -125° (approximately SW) and then the data indicate that it yawed CW to -16° starting at the 5 second mark. But that yaw maneuver was caused by full CW rudder applied for 2 seconds. Is that the yaw maneuver that you were referring to?

 

[ddublu]

And then what did you do after taking off? Feel free to give us as many details as you can remember.

Glad to...like some have said, this dissection is pretty fascinating to me (just sucks that it happened to me this time). I don't recall actual stick movements but I am confident I took off, waited a sec or two and then tried to fly straight away from me. That's what I do every time I take off. I can remember that sinking feeling when things left my control so my first reaction was to increase altitude (I have had plenty of situations where I lose contact and raising altitude almost always reconnects) but then I quickly thought that going up may not make the most sense given my proximity to Lake Shore Drive so I stopped doing that and may have actually started to decrease altitude. I also remember giving hard stick left as I saw it heading right. I actually did hit RTH but it was too late and the connection had already been lost.