My Mini 3 almost had a crash doing RTH

[chong67]

I was flying my drone deep inside a forest, tree branches at the top. I am flying visual, line of sight.

All of a sudden it says battery got 10 min left and it begins auto *ascent* to fly home.

Since the Mini 3 (not Pro) have no upward sensor, it could have hit some branches at the top of the tree, luckily this time, it was clear!

Now whose fault is this?

 

[Tufargon]

I was flying my drone deep inside a forest, tree branches at the top. I am flying visual, line of sight.

All of a sudden it says battery got 10 min left and it begins auto *ascent* to fly home.

Since the Mini 3 (not Pro) have no upward sensor, it could have hit some branches at the top of the tree, luckily this time, it was clear!

Now whose fault is this?

I've never heard it say time left. It always says battery percentage left. Definately sounds like operator fault. Probably could have set low battery to hover instead of RTH.

 

[msinger]

Now whose fault is this?

Any important details in your TXT flight log? You can upload it and view it online here.

 

[Meta4]

All of a sudden it says battery got 10 min left and it begins auto *ascent* to fly home.

Now whose fault is this?

The person flying the drone should be aware of the battery level and avoid flying under tree canopy or other cover when it's getting low.

Probably could have set low battery to hover instead of RTH.

You can set the Loss of Signal action to RTH, Hover or Land but there's no setting you can change for low battery.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I've never heard it say time left. It always says battery percentage left. Definately sounds like operator fault. Probably could have set low battery to hover instead of RTH.

What would be the point of having hover as an option for a low battery warning?
The low battery RTH can be cancelled, can't it?

If the RTH was not cancelled I ask "why not?".

 

[mavic3usa]

What would be the point of having hover as an option for a low battery warning?
The low battery RTH can be cancelled, can't it?

If the RTH was not cancelled I ask "why not?".

Obviously this DJI is not that type of drone but low battery warning hover is a useful option on the Skydio or any drone that is following you where you launch the drone and then you want to ride away as far as you can from home and while the drone is always nearby, if you lose the signal and the drone starts to hover, it will remain hover throughout the low battery warning and not take off and try to go back to home wherever that is. Typically on these follow me drones, you don't always have time to reset the home point or use some sort of dynamic home point with a beacon of sorts and with good battery life, a properly functioning high threshold warning (which could be greater the farther away from home you are), and audible indicators the rider has the opportunity to go back and pickup his drone which should be hovering nearby somewhere. However when the battery is fully depleted, there will be a soft but likely catastrophic landing.

 

[projectarjun]

To this date, I have never bothered with RTH, even if I considered setting it to a particular altitude, you never know what situation you may be in especially in a densely packed forest - gets worse when you realize you have 7% battery life yet and that can be depleted fast. Never go below 20% to be on the safe side to allow enough time for landing sequence to take place.

 

[slup]

...Now whose fault is this?

It's a grim fact that the vast majority of incidents involving DJI drones is caused by pilot errors (source:this forum)... so pure statistically it's fair to assume that you did something wrong or was ignorant about your drones functionality.

So if using the "ask 5 whys" method to drill down closer to the root cause.

1. Is what happened a valid function?

If looking in the user manual we find this...


2. How come you didn't know about this functionality?

-Maybe you forgot about it.
-Maybe you didn't see the warning prompt & was unaware about the low battery level you had there.
-Maybe you were aware about the functionality & the low battery level but took a risk.
-Maybe you were unaware about the low battery RTH functionality.

3. (possible continuation to above)

Why did you forget...
Why didn't you noticed the warning prompt...
Why did you take the risk...
Why didn't you read the warning prompt...
Why didn't you know anything about this functionality...

4. Root cause

Not focused on the complete task
or
Took a risk & lost
or
Ignorance when it comes to your drones functionality

So... unfortunately, this was very likely your own fault.

 

[FLDave]

What would be the point of having hover as an option for a low battery warning?
The low battery RTH can be cancelled, can't it?

If the RTH was not cancelled I ask "why not?".

Hover gives the pilot a chance the walk to the drone (it was clearly VLOS) and decide what to do. In worst case it would eventually land as it was below the tree canopy.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Hover gives the pilot a chance the walk to the drone (it was clearly VLOS) and decide what to do. In worst case it would eventually land as it was below the tree canopy.

Ok that is true but surely there is no such option available for low battery RTH, aren't the only options available to either
a) allow the RTH to proceed or
b) cancel the RTH?

As far as I know options are only available in connection with failsafe/loss-of-connection.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

but low battery warning hover is a useful option on the Skydio or any drone that is following you where you launch the drone and then you want to ride away as far as you can from home and while the drone is always nearby, if you lose the signal and the drone starts to hover, it will remain hover throughout the low battery warning and not take off and try to go back to home wherever that is.

As far as I know no consumer level DJI drone offers such an option in relation to low battery. In consumer level DJI drones loss of connection, where the failsafe option is set to hover, WILL end in a low battery RTH, assuming the drone has GPS of course.
For that matter, the "land" failsafe option will also end in a low battery RTH if the drone rejects the landing site.

 

[a2tomm]

Sounds like operator error to me

 

[3rdof5]

Definitely Pilot fault.
RTH action of the aircraft needs to be a part of every preflight plan and checklist. As mentioned by others, there are different scenarios where certain RTH actions are NOT desirable and these need to be recognized and planned for before takeoff. Low battery RTH is easiest to mitigate, land before it occurs.

 

[DroneDude1]

I've never heard it say time left. It always says battery percentage left. Definately sounds like operator fault. Probably could have set low battery to hover instead of RTH.

Mine has time left also