Sure I did something wrong but I lost my Mavic Mini yesterday.

[makemineamac]

I had a crash yesterday near an office building and want to better understand what happened.

While I was taking some photos of an existing Construction site that I photograph every other week the drone started to drift.

There was no wind at all and it wasn't that high. It was probably 70 feet or so away from the office building when it started heading towards it.

I thought I was trying to guide it away but it wasn't responding. I do see from the log that the amount of satellites dropped as it got closer, but it still had signal. Why wasn't I able to control it?

The log is here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I've racked my brain trying to think of what could have caused this.

Any input appreciated.

 

[Thomas B]

Welcome to the forum from the deserts of Arizona!
Did you have VLOS? How old is your drone... you may have a claim with DJI.

 

[makemineamac]

Welcome to the forum from the deserts of Arizona!
Did you have VLOS? How old is your drone... you may have a claim with DJI.

Thanks Thomas, Arizona sounds nice. It is about one year old exactly. And yes I had VLOS the whole time....

 

[Phantomrain.org]

I had a crash yesterday near an office building and want to better understand what happened.

While I was taking some photos of an existing Construction site that I photograph every other week the drone started to drift.

There was no wind at all and it wasn't that high. It was probably 70 feet or so away from the office building when it started heading towards it.

I thought I was trying to guide it away but it wasn't responding. I do see from the log that the amount of satellites dropped as it got closer, but it still had signal. Why wasn't I able to control it?

The log is here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I've racked my brain trying to think of what could have caused this.

Any input appreciated.

Did you loose the drone or just crash it. ?
Magnetic interference is a possibility and being low between the building is also possible
but the log should explain things in detail.

Welcome to the Forum ,

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly you Minis in the Rain.

 

[makemineamac]

It's on an inaccessible roof. I did what I could to retrieve it earlier today but just can't get to it unfortunately.

There haver been a couple of other times where my Mini has done this drift sort of thing - where I have great GPS connectivity - but it still seems like it is moving back and forth a little.

Sure makes you lose confidence in the device.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

It's on an inaccessible roof. I did what I could to retrieve it earlier today but just can't get to it unfortunately.

There haver been a couple of other times where my Mini has done this drift sort of thing - where I have great GPS connectivity - but it still seems like it is moving back and forth a little.

Sure makes you lose confidence in the device.

If you had a Phantom 4 I could share a crazy way to get it back down for you , simple but worth a shot .
even if you just got it dragged off the roof you would be good. .

Yes once you loose confidence that drones its hard to fly until you realize it pilot error.

im curious were you fully updated on the battery and the drone but from the log it really looks like you just lost the GPS either by being between the buildings or just to low.

 

[makemineamac]

Thanks again, and I was going to go rent an extension ladder to go get it, but with 2020 being they year that it has been, I decided it's not worth the risk.

I had had it on 2 previous flights yesterday, but the battery was still at 57%, and I was just trying to get some progress shots of this construction site, so I only intended to send it up for a minute get a couple of photos and head home.

The day ended differently for sure. You can't really see it in this photo, but it's there.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Thanks again, and I was going to go rent an extension ladder to go get it, but with 2020 being they year that it has been, I decided it's not worth the risk.

I had had it on 2 previous flights yesterday, but the battery was still at 57%, and I was just trying to get some progress shots of this construction site, so I only intended to send it up for a minute get a couple of photos and head home.

The day ended differently for sure. You can't really see it in this photo, but it's there.

Holy cow that is a Magnetic, GPS killer. lol Im not sure I could even get it with the Phantom 4 Pro as those rock would be the deal breaker,

I have had some luck with Sticking some Gorilla Duck Tape across the bridge of the Phantom and just landing and sticking and flying off with what ever it was stuck to.

What were you flying with there to get the pictures ?

 

[makemineamac]

Holy cow that is a Magnetic, GPS killer. lol Im not sure I could even get it with the Phantom 4 Pro as those rock would be the deal breaker,

I have had some luck with Sticking some Gorilla Duck Tape across the bridge of the Phantom and just landing and sticking and flying off with what ever it was stuck to.

What were you flying with there to get the pictures ?

Love the ideas, I wasn't flying, I bought a painters pole, taped my GoPro to it, put my 13 foot extension ladder against the building and climbed to the top, then extended the pole to see where it was.

I had created a duct tape thing to get it as well. If it was closer to the accessible side - where my ladder was, it might have been possible to fish it out, but it's on the opposite side, too far away to get to....

After the crash I was able to take a couple of photos so I had an idea where it was on the roof, but it was further away than I thought.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Love the ideas, I wasn't flying, I bought a painters pole, taped my GoPro to it, put my 13 foot extension ladder against the building and climbed to the top, then extended the pole to see where it was.

I had created a duct tape thing to get it as well. If it was closer to the accessible side - where my ladder was, it might have been possible to fish it out, but it's on the opposite side, too far away to get to....

After the crash I was able to take a couple of photos so I had an idea where it was on the roof, but it was further away than I thought.

That was a great effort , but a little risky so you would need another person to hold the painters pole as you used a fishing pole with a triple hook to maybe snag it. With those rocks in the way that might not work , this is what I think they mean between a Rock and a hard place.

 

[makemineamac]

For sure, and I'm on the Refresh program so I would have loved to get it back, but I'm not taking any chances.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

For sure, and I'm on the Refresh program so I would have loved to get it back, but I'm not taking any chances.

Well there is always telling them that your kid flew the drone on top of the building and you would like to get it back

 

[makemineamac]

Well there is always telling them that your kid flew the drone on top of the building and you would like to get it back

There's that for sure!

 

[Deleted member 103366]

A Phantom with a coat hanger hook attached centrally and symetrically to the undercarriage via a longish string would be my thoughts. (Maybe with a 'weak link' built in incase something snags etc. I tried this in the garden one and a P3Adv can pick up another P3Adv, so a mini would be nothing to it providing it wasn't snagged or trapped etc. e.g

It then comes down to whether the rescue flight would be kosher and whether there is something dangerous to drones in that building

 

[makemineamac]

Yeah, I wish I could see if it is snagged, I don't think it is.

 

[Tony McDrone]

I retrieved my MA2 from my own rooftop just 2 weeks ago, using my P4Pv2. I created a fishing hook out of bail wire and lifted the drone gently off of the roof, and placed it gently on the ground. I did not have an sd card in the Phantom or else I would’ve recorded the mission. However, I did not have the challenge of a loss of signal to overcome so it was much easier.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Tony, have you checked the App's cache? I dont know if the drone needs to be 'recording' to create a cache video but it might be worth having a look.
That said a screen video capture app on your phone is a handy thing to have

 

[Tony McDrone]

Tony, have you checked the App's cache? I dont know if the drone needs to be 'recording' to create a cache video but it might be worth having a look.
That said a screen video capture app on your phone is a handy thing to have

Thanks for the advice. I just checked and unfortunately had no luck. I did see videos from my MA2, which I thought was strange since it uses a completely different app.

 

[slup]

I've racked my brain trying to think of what could have caused this...

You flew your Mini in the dark (making the visual positional sensors not work) in a place where a big building covered most of the sky (preventing your Mini to get a proper GPS lock).

It's actually odd that the Mini didn't went into ATTI mode ... it must have been on the way there.

Here #locked satellites & the navhealth (how reliable the flight controller thought the position was). At 99sec into the flight both became really bad ... & with no VPS sensors working it would have been very prone to drift.



And here out from the log event stream from the flight ... have marked the warnings.



Did you hit the building before it crash landed on the roof ... it's some very large pitch & roll movements there in the end, or perhaps it was the touch down there?

Unfortunately this will be very hard to pin on DJI ... all looks like you didn't kept track on the sat count during the flight & didn't think of that the VPS sensors wouldn't work in the dark.

 

[makemineamac]

Thanks for your diagnosis slup, and not trying to blame DJI, it was getting dark for sure, this was the last photo I took before it started to drift. I just didn't understand what was happening, it just started to move uncontrollably and so I tried to keep it away from the building but it wasn't responding.

So yes, it hit the building and hit a couple of decorative window trays on the way down.

This is the building and approximately where it hit and fell.