What happened?

[Parkerjh]

Flown dozens of different drones on 1,000's of flights - no idea what happened.

I was doing a low altitude flight to capture some street front retail.
Flying Mavic 3 and RC Pro.
Was hovering and waiting for the right time to shoot with pedestrians, etc
A woman asked for help with her suitcase.
Stupidly, I obliged and tried to help get her suitcase onto the sidewalk.
My eyes were off the drone for a couple seconds but next thing I know it was racing away from me seemingly with no stick input.

Can someone help me understand what happened?

 

[msinger]

I uploaded your flight log here:

DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Can you let me know the exact time during the flight when it started racing away without any apparent stick input?

The only time I see the drone making racing-like movements is when the elevator was pushed fully up or down near the end of the flight. Where was your remote controller placed while you were handling the suitcase?

 

[Parkerjh]

thank you

RC was on leather shoulder strap hanging over neck

I just had it hovering in place and next thing I remember, it raced across my face so maybe it just seemed fast but it was racing away from me - I think I tried to stick up but can't recall - it was only a couple split seconds of erratic behavior before crash

 

[msinger]

According to the data, it didn't start flying away until you moved the right stick to this position:

 

[Parkerjh]

Hmmm, so it looks like a perfect arc - so very odd
Entirely possible stick got caught in my shirt or against the leather lanyard but it wasn't my fingers
When I looked up and heard it race across my head and street, I reached down to RC and didn't seem like anything was touching the sticks

I am 99.99% sure I was in normal mode and not sport and should have had obstacle avoidance - can you tell?

Appreciate the help very much

 

[msinger]

I am 99.99% sure I was in normal mode and not sport and should have had obstacle avoidance - can you tell?

Your flight log confirms that you were not flying in Sport mode.

It also shows that the drone was not facing the direction it was flying at the time of impact. It was moving sideways to the left.

 

[Parkerjh]

Your flight log confirms that you were not flying in Sport mode.

It also shows that the drone was not facing the direction it was flying at the time of impact. It was moving sideways to the left.

Hmm, so then the stick input is incorrect? Wonder why the OA didn't kick in.

 

[msinger]

Hmm, so then the stick input is incorrect?

What seems incorrect about the stick input?

The data shows something was physically pushing the stick toward the top left of the remote controller.

 

[Parkerjh]

If the drone was moving sideways and not in direction of travel and the right stick was full up in that position?

 

[msinger]

 

[Meta4]

Hmm, so then the stick input is incorrect? Wonder why the OA didn't kick in.

If the drone was moving sideways and not in direction of travel and the right stick was full up in that position?

There's nothing incorrect about the joystick input shown in the data.
The right stick was pushed fully up and left.
The drone moved in the direction that corresponding direction.

Here's an extract from the actual data with parts highlighted to help make it clear.
The large green (and yellow and red) block on the right shows the joystick inputs.
The two left columns are the right stick, right columns are the left stick.
Where it's green, the sticks are centred

The blue column shows the drone's speed., grey shows the direction (compass angle) of travel and the purple numbers show the crash with the drone getting tossed around.

Right stick was pushed forward and left ... hovering drone accelerated in a NW direction and crashed.