Mavic lost in the sea due to auto landing.

[westcoast604]

Sorry for your loss. I would love to hear your update from Mavic refresh if they will cover this.

Thank you for posting such a great video of the whole experience. It was educational.

Always so easy for everyone to armchair quarterback what went wrong or what you should have done but when in the moment it's not always easy to think of all options available to you.

Please keep us posted on DJI's response to Mavic refresh.

 

[swills38]

Not sure what the community thinks about this but being that you were over the ocean, it may have been beneficial to fly up where ocean wind is less of an affect. Sorry for your loss

 

[famy mavic]

sorry about lost mavic .....

 

[shb]

I had a problem with my mavic going into autolanding today, and it could of been hit by a car. but this was mainly about going out too far, with a strong wind against your return. probably no one should fly in that strong of a wind anyway. sorry about your loss though. steve

ps you made a good video of it though. hopefully, you'll save some other peoples mavics

 

[diveinstructor]

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Im a diver, it looks not to deep where she went down...... did you try to hire to some divers to recover her? :-( Sorry for the loss man...

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

If he didn't stop and turn around right at the end, he could have got the drone back or at least closer. He should have zig zagged back as well, a little silly he didn't test the wind the other way but it's interesting to see it still has some juice available at 0%

What good is zig zagging going to do? The quickest way back is a straight line.

 

[Lawrencerbe]

sport mode would likely have just taken the battery out faster. catch 22 in this situation. either way i think it was going to turn into a duck.

i am always in favour of a long run, i like flying out, although i never make more than 2300 meters before i lose all signal, then battery power to get home is not my problem lol

What if he went right into sport mode and lower the drone to right about wave height ? Do you think he could have made it? Personally if I am in the ocean once my battery level hits 50 % i am coming back

 

[collins]

What if he went right into sport mode and lower the drone to right about wave height ? Do you think he could have made it? Personally if I am in the ocean once my battery level hits 50 % i am coming back

Yes, this is my question too.

Isnt the right action to take against a heavy head wind to go into 'sport mode'?

Anyways, sorry for this guys loss.

 

[TreeburnerCT]

What if he went right into sport mode and lower the drone to right about wave height ? Do you think he could have made it? Personally if I am in the ocean once my battery level hits 50 % i am coming back

If you are flying straight out with a tailwind turning back at 50% will get you exactly what you see in the video - wet! Plan to get back with 30% remaining, so with a tailwind you're looking at turning around at 80% or so if you want a good chance of getting your bird back.

-Joe

 

[-rce-]

I too, hate to see a lost drone. Mine almost flew away. Fortunately, RTH worked to bring it back.

However, it was totally pilot error. There's no way you had VLOS at that distance.

Sorry dude.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

What if he went right into sport mode and lower the drone to right about wave height ? Do you think he could have made it? Personally if I am in the ocean once my battery level hits 50 % i am coming back

Yes given his track, but don't treat 50% as safe RTH level when flying downwind.

 

[GerdS]

Im a diver, it looks not to deep where she went down...... did you try to hire to some divers to recover her? :-( Sorry for the loss man...

Makes no sense trying to recover it except he has the DJI Care insurance. Salt water has completely destroyed it already and it was no malfunction, so DJI will not replace it on guarantee.

 

[Claybond]

How sad. I see that you thought you safe when you started your return at 71%. I also see that you have quite a few flights under your belt. Yesterday I was in a panic when mine went into RTH, and I learned some things through comments.

First, you can cancel RTH. There are 2 ways that come to mind: the phone's touch screen left edge shows a red X for cancel after it has started RTH, and the Flight Mode button (Sport button) on the right side of the controller can be toggled once, or twice if you need to return to the prior mode.

I fly over trees, not open sea so I don't know if this applies in your environment, but I have learned that the higher I go, the stronger the wind. For me wind is much calmer below 60 feet even in areas with no trees. So if RTH is taking you up, you definitely want to cancel it and keep the drone low -- lower the better if you are in a headwind. This may be explain why your rate of speed towards the shore was much better at the end when the drone was closer to the surface. In fact after reviewing your video, I noted that when your elevation was around -10 ft, you were cruising at 15 mph or better. For all of the rest of your flight, it seemed that you rarely if ever went below 50 ft, which may explain the strong headwinds. Also note that cancelling RTH will allow you full control instead of making you "fight it" as you mentioned.

One last thought about RTH. I am not sure if RTH will drop out of Sport mode, into P mode, but I suspect it does. This could be disastrous in your case (maybe one of your biggest factors). Also if you check the GO 4 App setting "Visual Navigation Settings / Advanced Settings / RTH Obstacle Check", this setting implies that with RTH it will be enabling sensors which in my understanding requires P mode. This is one more reason that RTH should have been canceled in your instance.

My lesson learned yesterday is that if RTH has been initiated, yet I can control the drone, that I will be better at protecting and flying my Mavic than RTH will ever be. From now on, I will allow RTH to be initiated (setting: enable RTH), but if it is I will always cancel it as soon as I can.

That is very wise, I also fly around the trees and I like going for distance, I do however do a cross sampling of all the wind directions on my way out, a simple 90 degree flight path x both compass axis, noting speed and rpm tells the story toot sweet and slows me to judge the conditions aloft. I do use RTH a lot and with your advice I will now start taking back control as soon as able. WhT a heart wrenching video. Doesn't matter what cause a mavic to go down, human or mechanical, I feel every guys loss. RIP Delores.
The good news is there's another and another mavic just waiting to be bought!

 

[diveinstructor]

Makes no sense trying to recover it except he has the DJI Care insurance. Salt water has completely destroyed it already and it was no malfunction, so DJI will not replace it on guarantee.

Ya true, I was thinking he had the insurance.

 

[isitabird]

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At 7:17 in the video your lucky your iPhone never joined the drone in the water....now that would of been a double disaster......

 

[joshnl]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but I've found that Sport mode can sometimes rescue you from this scenario. Basically, in some really strong headwind situations, the Mavic just stands still, or moves at a super slow speed, when in normal mode. While you may use less battery than in Sport mode per unit time, the drone will just hover there essentially until it runs out of battery. In these cases, putting it into Sport mode gives the drone a much better chance of being able to cut through the wind. It will definitely eat up the battery faster, but at least it will move forward - meaning the distance traveled per % battery used will actually be higher than in normal mode. You just have to hope it will make it home before it runs out of juice.

But yeah, when flying in heavy winds, you definitely need to be mindful of all these things and, if you're smart (I'm usually not), build some extra buffer into your plan (i.e. aim to finish at 25% or 30% instead of 10% or 15%).

 

[GerdS]

It's also helpful in that case, switching off obstacle recognition and intelligent RTH, as this also will increase speed. But I would definitively use sports mode in such situations, too.

 

[Pac]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but I've found that Sport mode can sometimes rescue you from this scenario.

Did you watch the video? He IS in Sport mode when flying back.

It's also helpful in that case, switching off obstacle recognition and intelligent RTH, as this also will increase speed. But I would definitively use sports mode in such situations, too.

In Sport mode, obstacle regonition is turned off and can't be turned on. And as mentioned, he WAS in Sport mode.

 

[DejaViewz]

That was painful to watch.