Mini SE Flyaway

[Logic999]

Hi,

I lost my Mini SE drone today after its first ‘real’ flight away from the back garden.

Unfortunately it seems to have flown off and I couldn’t get it back.

I had full signal, home set before setting off and had a very small test flight to approximately 30 metres away before bringing it back.

I then switched the mode to ‘S’ mode and moved it forwards.

As I did so the drone ascended and flew away to my north and I lost video feed over a golf course. The controller and GPS signal appeared to have stopped at the entrance to the golf course.

However looking at the log using the viewer it seems to have gone much further than I originally thought.

I pressed the return to home button twice, however the drone kept going and appears to have possibly hit a house and came back down to earth.

The odd thing I note that it appears to have displayed errors quite quickly switching to the S mode.

Can anyone take a look at the log and see what they think and offer any assistance?

Thanks

DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[Meta4]

Hi,

I lost my Mini SE drone today after its first ‘real’ flight away from the back garden.

This is an interesting incident and appears to have been caused by a genuine and rare hardware fault.
Your flight data shows a problem with the IMU that caused false height data after approx 54.6 seconds.
The speed data from then shows a high indicated speed although the joystick data shows the sticks were centred.
The variations in the indicated speed are suspect, but it is clear that the drone reached much higher speeds than usually possible.
You initiated RTH at 1:07.9, but the drone continued in a NE direction at speed.

It's a little difficult to make sensor of the data because it's unclear which can be believed.
The height data are definitely false, suggesting a problem with the IMU was the cause of the incident.

The drone was still flying at high speed when the signal was lost, at an unknown height.
It's not possible to determine where it might have come down.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Jeepers, I'd be inclined to get in touch with DJI over this one. They will want the flight logs, possibly including the DAT, which, if you do no sync your flight logs with DJI, should be in a sub folder of the folder where you found the txt flight log.
If you see DAT's in there it is the one that will probably have FLY013 in its name, I would make a backup of the DAT even though it may be unreadable by anyone except DJI.
If you do sync your flight logs the DAT has probably disappeared form you phone and DJI may already have it.

 

[Lob's Falcon]

Please don't mistake me for one of the people you want to listen to. I am a knucklehead and not a tech. My question, because you mention first real flight, is whether everything was updated. No offense intended. Just checking. Best of luck to you!

 

[Meta4]

Please don't mistake me for one of the people you want to listen to. I am a knucklehead and not a tech. My question, because you mention first real flight, is whether everything was updated. No offense intended. Just checking. Best of luck to you!

Updated or not wouldn't have made any difference in this incident (or most others).

 

[Lob's Falcon]

As i mentioned, i am a knucklehead. Just trying to help. Please pardon my ignorance.

 

[Meta4]

As i mentioned, i am a knucklehead. Just trying to help. Please pardon my ignorance.

No worries ... I was just trying to help with some insight.

 

[Logic999]

Hi.

Thank you both for your reply.

Unfortunately based on some very rough estimates I'd imagine it's likely to be in a river and I'd imagine the wind got hold of it. The last image I had was it flying over trees and away from me

I've made DJI aware and hopefully will hear back from them shortly. Thankfully the data has all been sent over to them and they already have it. I'm hoping them come to the same conclusion.

One issue I noted using the DJI Fly app was the last location on the app was incorrect. It stated that it appeared to have been directly above a golf course close to a main road (a reason I didn't kill the motors on drone) and this was its last location. A thorough search in and around the course obviously drew a blank. However when I returned and viewed the data log myself the drone went alot further than I initially thought. Is this common with DJI drones for the app not to display the drones last location ?

It was clear the receiver/transmitter and application was still receiving a signal long after I thought it had stopped but quite quickly after losing sight of it the drone disconnected.

I'm relatively new to drones and certainly Dji Products however tried to learn as much as possible before my first flight to prevent something like this from happening.

Thanks again

 

[Logic999]

As i mentioned, i am a knucklehead. Just trying to help. Please pardon my ignorance.

Everything was fully updated to the latest firmware. Funnily enough I double checked just before I left. Both the firmware and software were both fully up to date.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Just a point, with the options set to the default (emergency only or something similar) I doubt that the CSC would have stopped the drone's motors. For that to happen the drone 'must think' it has suffered some sort of 'emergency'. I doubt it did 'think' that.
The alternative setting go anytime would have stopped the motors but has such a short delay period ( under 2 seconds ?) that I think it is too risky to leave set as the 'norm'.

 

[Meta4]

Unfortunately based on some very rough estimates I'd imagine it's likely to be in a river and I'd imagine the wind got hold of it.

Wind had nothing to do with this incident.

One issue I noted using the DJI Fly app was the last location on the app was incorrect.

You are incorrectly assuming that the last location in the data should be where the drone ended up.
But it's just the last location data from the drone when signal was lost.
And as it was flying away at 40 mph at an unknown height at the time, still with lots of battery, the drone isn't going to be anywhere near that spot.

Is this common with DJI drones for the app not to display the drones last location ?

The app can only show what data it has.
If the data includes a crash or a landing, that's where the drone ended up.
If the drone was still in flight and signal was lost, the drone continued past that.
Sometimes we can deduce a likely search location based on trajectories, obstacles and remaining battery power.
But in your case, with unknown height there wasn't enough information to work with.

It was clear the receiver/transmitter and application was still receiving a signal long after I thought it had stopped but quite quickly after losing sight of it the drone disconnected.

Signal was lost 0.5 miles away

I'm relatively new to drones and certainly Dji Products however tried to learn as much as possible before my first flight to prevent something like this from happening.

There was nothing you could do to prevent this incident.
It was due to a hardware fault.

 

[Logic999]

Meta4 & Yorkshire Pud

Thanks both to your insight and help.

DJI service has been great, they've reviewed and concluded it to be a hardware fault with the drone and are replacing it.

They did however state it was a prop/engine issue which caused it but didn't really go into it much more.

Thanks again.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Glad you got it sorted.