My mavic fell from the sky.

[lion]

My Mavic Pro was flying along and came out of the sky all of a sudden. The wind was light, and I checked the props as always before takeoff. the camera jolted and the craft spiraled. The log is here; DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

It has a speed error then gps error, then comps goes as it hist the floor, I can only assume from the spiraling.

Is this the drone at fault or something else?

We have scoured the entire field and can not find the drone, even navigating to the GPS and searching out from there with several people. We think someone has seen us looking and nicked it, that or it disappeared into the lancashire triangle.

 

[4wd]

How many previous flights?
It has the look of a bird strike or possible gun shot.
Are there any clues on the cache video?

 

[Mission North]

What are the intriguing holes in the ground that you were looking at? And would your interest in them have caused someone to shoot at your Mavic? 40 years ago as a kid I used to play in the woods the other side of Weeton army camp. I remember finding lots of used shotgun cartidges around there.

 

[lion]

There was a bird flying about...

Danny Vc Llew

 

[lion]

What are the intriguing holes in the ground that you were looking at? And would your interest in them have caused someone to shoot at your Mavic? 40 years ago as a kid I used to play in the woods the other side of Weeton army camp. I remember finding lots of used shotgun cartidges around there.

They are ponds, I am checking them for contamination from a nearby gas exploration site. Yes there could be people who wouldn't want it in the sky. Our concern is for the natural environment though. The interesting question is why it could not be found after,we were in the field within a couple of minutes.

Just to make things more interesting, my phone, and a GPS off road unit both had difficulties keeping GPS lock in the field. I don't see how that would cause a speed error though.

 

[sar104]

You were throwing it around pretty hard in high winds. Looks like prop failure at 203.8 seconds.

 

[Mission North]

There's a lot of radio frequency interference round there. Warton radar, Inskip low frequency stuff. The ponds look like strange holes on Google Earth. Good luck in your investigations. I'm on your side on that one.

 

[lion]

How many previous flights?
It has the look of a bird strike or possible gun shot.
Are there any clues on the cache video?

Video Danny Vc Llew . A bird does fly through the shot. the sound on the mic has birds flying away and some kind of noise before and after, and interestingly at the same time as a jolt on the screen. To make things more unclear out devices on the ground has GPS issues.

It has to have had nearly 100 successful flights since new in May, I don't keep all my logs but it will in the future.

 

[sar104]

There was a bird flying about...

Danny Vc Llew

And the video is consistent with the log data. Looks like it lost the right rear prop.

 

[lion]

You were throwing it around pretty hard in high winds. Looks like prop failure at 203.8 seconds.

These were quite low winds, I have seen a mavic tackle 20 mph winds before with ample control and power to spare to be safe, this was barely 10. Props looked fine on takeoff, they are checked every time. I'm wondering if it was a bird. Thing is there are 0.2 seconds where the error disappears, which confuses me.

 

[lion]

So this is nothing to do with the reports of certain batches that fall from the sky?

 

[sar104]

These were quite low winds, I have seen a mavic tackle 20 mph winds before with ample control and power to spare to be safe, this was barely 10. Props looked fine on takeoff, they are checked every time. I'm wondering if it was a bird. Thing is there are 0.2 seconds where the error disappears, which confuses me.

AirData analysis of your log indicates winds up to 30 mph out of the SE at 220 ft AGL. Ignore the error disappearing.

 

[sar104]

So this is nothing to do with the reports of certain batches that fall from the sky?

It could have been an ESC failure. Need you to find the aircraft and retrieve the DAT file to determine that. I hadn't heard about entire batches falling out of the sky - is there an associated common cause?

 

[lion]

AirData analysis of your log indicates winds up to 30 mph out of the SE at 220 ft AGL. Ignore the error disappearing.

View attachment 21374

It didn't display any large wind cautions on the app...

 

[sar104]

It didn't display any large wind cautions on the app...

Nevertheless - the data indicate that it was quite windy. Not that it necessarily had anything to do with the failure.

 

[JeepDSL]

Video Danny Vc Llew . A bird does fly through the shot. the sound on the mic has birds flying away and some kind of noise before and after, and interestingly at the same time as a jolt on the screen. To make things more unclear out devices on the ground has GPS issues.

It has to have had nearly 100 successful flights since new in May, I don't keep all my logs but it will in the future.

That bird was pretty far away. Since the Mavic doesn't have a mic, the sounds would have been from where you were standing and are probably meaningless.

 

[sar104]

Oh great, now DJI drones wont be allowed to fly in any wind incase they do a runner.

If they are that weak and poorly designed to fail in wind, then we are all sitting on lemons.

Not sure how you came to either of those conclusions. This was not a "runner" and there was no indication that the wind played any part in the failure.

 

[sar104]

Sorry, it was a non runner. Out of control.
I disagree that wind had any part in this, my sarcastic comment was to question why someone would entertain the idea particularly when OP stated no wind warnings.

I see, caught out by Poe's Law again. I mentioned the wind only in the context of the the flight conditions. AirData's algorithm estimated nearly 30 mph at 220 ft, which is consistent with the speed and pitch data upwind, so the lack of wind warnings is a little surprising.

 

[FlyGuy8675309]

Very strange you can't find it - and it sounds like you guys have really been searching - but I doubt if someone shot it down they would take the chance to go and recover it.

It sucks, but it's part of the deal with remote AC. At least no one was hurt and no property damage (well, other than Droney McDroneface ).

 

[Jenee]

My Mavic Pro was flying along and came out of the sky all of a sudden. The wind was light, and I checked the props as always before takeoff. the camera jolted and the craft spiraled. The log is here; DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

It has a speed error then gps error, then comps goes as it hist the floor, I can only assume from the spiraling.

Is this the drone at fault or something else?

We have scoured the entire field and can not find the drone, even navigating to the GPS and searching out from there with several people. We think someone has seen us looking and nicked it, that or it disappeared into the lancashire triangle.

I am not sure but it could have been a bird strike. I had an instance where a magpie hit one of my propellers which I saw and the Mavic jolted but kept flying. There was only a small nick in the prop but in the records in Airdata, it showed large compass errors at the time of the hit.