My Mavic 3 flew away - Any Help Please with Location

[calmar81]

I had the same thing happen.DJI said I changed my home point to far away before activating RTH. I did not

Could this happen by accident or by itself?

 

[slup]

That is my data that is on airdata, it would show YOUR information.

Just to clarify thing's ... the "Find my drone" function, or as you say, the "last known location" is only correct & usable if:

-The drone is connected with the RC
-And the RC connected with the mobile device
-The GPS have a enough good reception & quality

All this as the last known location is recorded in the app installed in the mobile device ... so if the connection (either AC-RC or RC-phone) is broken the recorded "last know location" will not be equal to where the AC ends up eventually.

The Find my drone function is only reliable when all stays connected until the AC touches down... which was not the case in this incident.

 

[vlieg]

I am sorry to hear that. I guess that I was lucky to be able to find it that way.
Horrible to lose a big investment that way !

 

[Suren]

Well searched every where I could till I got dog tired and ended up buying an Autel Lite+ now to help me search the tree tops

 

[Meta4]

Sorry if I wasn't clear.

The behavior is pretty clearly the RTH algorithm.

That's a bold assumption without seeing any data to confirm it.
Particularly when what data we have doesn't fit with your guesses.

The fact that the GPS system appeared via telemetry to be functional, and the home point from all available data seemed to be correctly set are simply evidence of the problem.

Evidence of the problem??
I can't work out how you came to this bizarre conclusion.

I haven't looked at the scant data available in this case, so I may be chasing phantoms. However, assuming the RTH algorithm, maybe something can be deducted about a suddenly erroneous HP, and better narrow the search area.

Not looking at the data, making assumptions and not understanding how DJI drones behave ....
That's an interesting approach to incident investigation.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

purchased a standard one, and it is already getting a care refresh because of the controlability issue.

Somewhat puzzled, if it's a malfunction why would you use a care refresh and not warranty?

 

[Suren]

Well this is what I am basically searching in to try and find my Mavic 3. Had to stop searching because of all the birds, did not want to lose this on the first day.

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[Tufargon]

The circle is complete? : )

I'd say why even go back now lol.
Edit: Now that I saw the video of the area.............. WOW that's thick! Also that video is amazing quality.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Well this is what I am basically searching in to try and find my Mavic 3. Had to stop searching because of all the birds, did not want to lose this on the first day.

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Oh dear god, let us all say good bye to an M3 , the orphan that never had a chance to be loved before it disappeared into the broccoli forest.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your M3 in the Rain and find itself in the Broccoli Forest.

 

[Suren]

I'd say why even go back now lol.
Edit: Now that I saw the video of the area.............. WOW that's thick! Also that video is amazing quality.

The footage on the drone is truely amazing but nothing compared to the Mavic 3 in regards to handling of wind, speed and features.

 

[Suren]

Oh dear god, let us all say good bye to an M3 , the orphan that never had a chance to be loved before it disappeared into the broccoli forest.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your M3 in the Rain and find itself in the Broccoli Forest.

LOL, Yeah I highly doubt I will be able to find it as well. I spoke to a restaurant owner around there and they have a good trail going to the top. He said they reopen on Friday so will be going there to see what I can.

 

[Tufargon]

The footage on the drone is truely amazing but nothing compared to the Mavic 3 in regards to handling of wind, speed and features.

As it shouldn't. It's not in the same catagory. It would be compared more to an Air 2S IMHO.

 

[Suren]

As it shouldn't. It's not in the same catagory. It would be compared more to an Air 2S IMHO.

I know but you know its like going from a Mercedes to a Haval

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Forget needle in a haystack, that's worse than a pin head in a field of haystacks. Pity.
I have been stood looking for a mavic mini in a sparse tree and the drone was literally within arm's length of me and I couldn't see it. The only way I could work out where it was was to put the end of a brush shaft into the camera's view and then move the end of the brush shaft towards the camera.

 

[sar104]

LOL, Yeah I highly doubt I will be able to find it as well. I spoke to a restaurant owner around there and they have a good trail going to the top. He said they reopen on Friday so will be going there to see what I can.

Slightly random question, but have you checked the roof of your house in case it came back and landed up there?

 

[Suren]

Slightly random question, but have you checked the roof of your house in case it came back and landed up there?

LOL, yeah checked with the Autel today and nothing

 

[ianwood]

Some observations:

1. It was conducting a master shot at the time. Maybe it was still doing the master shot sequence when the app stopped responding. A malfunction in master shots perhaps? Or when master shots aborts?
2. There were discrepancies between settings in the app vs. on the drone/in the log. This seems unusual. Has anyone seen this before?
3. What was causing the app to disconnect repeatedly?
4. Are 2 and 3 related?
5. Was the RC disconnected or just the app? Do we know?
6. It seems GNSS and other sensors were working as expected so it likely moved in controlled flight to the location it was directed to. Question is directed by what.

 

[Meta4]

2. There were discrepancies between settings in the app vs. on the drone/in the log. This seems unusual. Has anyone seen this before?

The height limit and RTH height shown at the end of post #16 are a screenshot of the settings in the controller with no drone connected.
Without a drone, they can only show default values.
The flight data doesn't show any discrepancy.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Edit: Now that I saw the video of the area.............. WOW that's thick! Also that video is amazing quality.

Forget needle in a haystack, that's worse than a pin head in a field of haystacks.

Yep, the needle / haystack thing is quite reasonable odds compared to that terrain and vegetation !!
And there's a whole range of hills where it could have hit, or it might have gone over them and be anywhere beyond.

Hopefully DJI will end up honouring their first response and replacing the M3 . . . then it's either wait for updates to fix these things, or learn it's limitations, or a bit of both. (Or, SELL IT !!)

 

[Phantomrain.org]

This is interesting because if DJI thinks he changed the Home Point by Accident , the outcome is not going to be good.
Its not that easy to change the home point as you have to go into the menu to do it and drag it over.

The only other thing I know of that can engage that behavior is of course Magnetic Interference and is that completely off the table ?

Because he would have missed the warnings with all the drama on the controller?

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your M3 in the Rain.