Hi all,
So I was wondering about what to expect and proceed after my drone incident this week. Weather was sunny, clear, with calm winds - approx 11:30 AM. It was a weekday in an empty area. I was flying north of the Las Vegas strip (near Circus Circus location to get a distant landscape capture of the buildings and surrounding mountains). About 12 minutes into the flight I was at the max distance reached at which, at this point, I was planning to fly it back home (top of a small empty parking garage) and end the flight. However, at that instant, it lost signal. This has happened many of times to me... at which point I've always select the RTH option. It usually takes a couple of seconds to retrieve signal again. However, this time, the signal never came back and neither did the drone. It continued flying further to a point that a hotel blocked it's view and I lost visual. I waited a bit, but the signal never returned. After a few minutes I sprinted the 1500 ft to it's last recorded location on the GPS map.
The drone was nowhere to be seen. I searched everywhere frantically but to my despair, it was nowhere to be seen. As each minute passed, the controller never picked up signal to the drone. I contacted that hotel's security and they also helped search their perimeter, including all their rooftops, etc... no one reported seeing it nor could they find it. I looked everywhere. Even knowing the phantom 4's ability to avoid obstacles, I searched to see if it possibly crashed somewhere. I then contacted the surrounding buildings and vicinity and no one saw it. I called air traffic control at the two surrounding airports to make a report about the drone and ask if they had picked it up on their radar or if any interference was performed. They unfortunately had no information. My partner stayed at the home location the entire time and never saw it come back nor reported back any further visual of it. We searched through the entire evening but it was never seen nor spotted by anyone. I left my number and made craigslist lost and found posts to no avail. I do not understand how this could have happened... we had our flight back home that evening and live nowhere near Las Vegas. I followed all of DJI's instructions sending them all my flight logs and the entire report. The lady on the phone informed me that depending on the investigation, they may send me a new one. Has anyone ever experienced such an incident? I used to fly the phantom 2 but never experienced something like this. Do you think DJI will be able to locate the drone? My memory card and footage is still there and it's such a mystery that on a clear day like that, the drone could just disappear. It even shows on the flight log at 280 ft, the drone just disappears off the screen.
I attached the flight record here: Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones
The text file is in an attachment.
Thanks - this means so much for me. I'd spent years saving since my phantom 2 and had the 4 since July. This has caused me so much anxiety. A few locals reached out to me and even said they'd try to fly their Mavics to try and find it.
So I was wondering about what to expect and proceed after my drone incident this week. Weather was sunny, clear, with calm winds - approx 11:30 AM. It was a weekday in an empty area. I was flying north of the Las Vegas strip (near Circus Circus location to get a distant landscape capture of the buildings and surrounding mountains). About 12 minutes into the flight I was at the max distance reached at which, at this point, I was planning to fly it back home (top of a small empty parking garage) and end the flight. However, at that instant, it lost signal. This has happened many of times to me... at which point I've always select the RTH option. It usually takes a couple of seconds to retrieve signal again. However, this time, the signal never came back and neither did the drone. It continued flying further to a point that a hotel blocked it's view and I lost visual. I waited a bit, but the signal never returned. After a few minutes I sprinted the 1500 ft to it's last recorded location on the GPS map.
The drone was nowhere to be seen. I searched everywhere frantically but to my despair, it was nowhere to be seen. As each minute passed, the controller never picked up signal to the drone. I contacted that hotel's security and they also helped search their perimeter, including all their rooftops, etc... no one reported seeing it nor could they find it. I looked everywhere. Even knowing the phantom 4's ability to avoid obstacles, I searched to see if it possibly crashed somewhere. I then contacted the surrounding buildings and vicinity and no one saw it. I called air traffic control at the two surrounding airports to make a report about the drone and ask if they had picked it up on their radar or if any interference was performed. They unfortunately had no information. My partner stayed at the home location the entire time and never saw it come back nor reported back any further visual of it. We searched through the entire evening but it was never seen nor spotted by anyone. I left my number and made craigslist lost and found posts to no avail. I do not understand how this could have happened... we had our flight back home that evening and live nowhere near Las Vegas. I followed all of DJI's instructions sending them all my flight logs and the entire report. The lady on the phone informed me that depending on the investigation, they may send me a new one. Has anyone ever experienced such an incident? I used to fly the phantom 2 but never experienced something like this. Do you think DJI will be able to locate the drone? My memory card and footage is still there and it's such a mystery that on a clear day like that, the drone could just disappear. It even shows on the flight log at 280 ft, the drone just disappears off the screen.
I attached the flight record here: Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones
The text file is in an attachment.
Thanks - this means so much for me. I'd spent years saving since my phantom 2 and had the 4 since July. This has caused me so much anxiety. A few locals reached out to me and even said they'd try to fly their Mavics to try and find it.