Recently Lost my drone to the sea....Or Murdered?

[TBenny]

So a few days ago i was flying my drone around the coast. All was well, I've been flying for around 8 minutes i was about 700 ft away 200 ft offshore 300 ft high, great signal and plenty of battery remaining (like 60%). I began a easy decent and and watched the live feed, Except i didnt want too.... Seemingly out of nowhere it begins a tumbling free fall. there was no hope, nothing i could do but watch a small dot in the distance impact the water from 300 feet. can anyone tell me what happened? what logs you would need? because this is kind of a bummer.

 

[Meta4]

can anyone tell me what happened? what logs you would need? because this is kind of a bummer.

Go to https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and perhaps we can find some answers.

 

[Deleted member 62848]

So a few days ago i was flying my drone around the coast. All was well, I've been flying for around 8 minutes i was about 700 ft away 200 ft offshore 300 ft high, great signal and plenty of battery remaining (like 60%). I began a easy decent and and watched the live feed, Except i didnt want too.... Seemingly out of nowhere it begins a tumbling free fall. there was no hope, nothing i could do but watch a small dot in the distance impact the water from 300 feet. can anyone tell me what happened? what logs you would need? because this is kind of a bummer.

S###t,,,,any seaguls about,,that a big bad bummer,,,,,

 

[Craig oliver]

Could have been clipped by a seagull or maybe motor failure maybe even lost a prop. Gutted for you mate.

 

[TBenny]

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com this is the one, i was useing litchi at the time

 

[Numone]

Sorry for the loss of your AC.

 

[Ilex]

Hmm, did you switch to ATTI yourself? If not, then the bird lost GPS signal somehow.

 

[solentlife]

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com this is the one, i was useing litchi at the time

If using Litchi - then you can view the log in Excel without need for other viewer etc.

Select the .csv file in the Litchi log folder on your tablet.

Nigel

 

[solentlife]

Hmm, did you switch to ATTI yourself? If not, then the bird lost GPS signal somehow.

mmmmm strange .... guy didn't accidentally knock the S1 switch by mistake ?

Nigel

 

[Indiana_pyro]

Hmm, did you switch to ATTI yourself? If not, then the bird lost GPS signal somehow.

I'm not clear- how would ATTI mode or loss of GPS send it down ?

 

[Dazzauk]

Loosing gps would not make it tumble etc, it would just drift with the wind.

 

[solentlife]

Loosing gps would not make it tumble etc, it would just drift with the wind.

Agreed but only if you KNOW its now on ATTI and you are familiar with flying in ATTI mode. If like most - fly only with GPS ... a change to ATTI mode during a flight would create havoc !! because they never practice flying without GPS ...

Nigel

 

[AWD]

Agreed but only if you KNOW its now on ATTI and you are familiar with flying in ATTI mode. If like most - fly only with GPS ... a change to ATTI mode during a flight would create havoc !! because they never practice flying without GPS ...

Nigel

Nigel,

That's simply not true. When flying normally, if the bird goes from P to ATTI mode, the only thing you'll notice is that the icon changes on your screen. It still flies and handles the same with the exception of a stable "automatic" hover.

Climb, descend, move left and right, turns and video/stills all work just the same.

Dropping into ATTI mode is not the end of the world, it just makes stable hovering a bit more difficult and being aware of the wind, but it is not the major crisis many here would believe.

AD

 

[loic2665]

Sorry, but it's not normal, we have to know, the P3S doesn't know when a propeller, broke, or when a motor stops.
Even if the ATTI mode was activated, the drone musn't fall. That what i can say. This is the only thing a regret on Litchi, he doesn't record, in cache like DJO GO app.

Sorry for you


EDIT :

As I can se, i opened, the file with excel. Made a board with the comma separation.

Since the 5106th line, the pitchh(deg), roll(deg), yaw(deg), value start to be crazy, i think this is more a motor problem, or something hit the drone. Then, the flight was interrumpted, because the csv file end with a "4" value at the 5th collumn. defenitly a lot of signal for the drop of AC.

So bad.

 

[RodPad]

I don't get it, if there was a motor or prop failure, it still wouldn't be going 47 mph, if it was tumbling like the OP said. This should have still be in the log, since it was over water and not that far away. To me the sudden loss in signal, would mean it lost power. But the OP states "watched the live feed, Except i didnt want too" I see his decent, then it just goes dead at 178'.
I really don't get it.

Rod

 

[TBenny]

sorry for not responding but as I was flying I didn't flip any switches and I know how to fly atti. do you guys think there is any way dji would replace it? I still have dji care for it. I wish I had a cache video of it but I wasn't recording just taking pictures.

 

[TBenny]

I don't get it, if there was a motor or prop failure, it still wouldn't be going 47 mph, if it was tumbling like the OP said. This should have still be in the log, since it was over water and not that far away. To me the sudden loss in signal, would mean it lost power. But the OP states "watched the live feed, Except i didnt want too" I see his decent, then it just goes dead at 178'.
I really don't get it.

Rod

I should have also clarified but yes I did watch it tumble on live feed but it lost signal a little before it hit

 

[RodPad]

sorry for not responding but as I was flying I didn't flip any switches and I know how to fly atti. do you guys think there is any way dji would replace it? I still have dji care for it. I wish I had a cache video of it but I wasn't recording just taking pictures.

Hum, you could try, I don't think your rates will go up, after claiming an accident.

Rod

 

[dgd3]

So a few days ago i was flying my drone around the coast. All was well, I've been flying for around 8 minutes i was about 700 ft away 200 ft offshore 300 ft high, great signal and plenty of battery remaining (like 60%). I began a easy decent and and watched the live feed, Except i didnt want too.... Seemingly out of nowhere it begins a tumbling free fall. there was no hope, nothing i could do but watch a small dot in the distance impact the water from 300 feet. can anyone tell me what happened? what logs you would need? because this is kind of a bummer.

From what I've gathered on this forum is that descending straight brown can get get the Phantom into its own downdraft resulting in "instability". A poster said that is why helekopter pilots fly horizontal when descending, to not get cought in their own downdraft. For quite a while I wondered what had happened in my attached video, but now I think that was it. Fortunately it recovered, I didn't know how close it had been until seeing the video. The hieght was 50 m.

 

[RodPad]

@dgd3 , Thanks for the post!
I would be curious of which model of Phantom this is.

I can't remember the exact term "Prop Wash?", but it seems like DJI has reduced speeds of descending with software, maybe giros, etc. So my first impression was, I don't think so.

But yes something causing this to happen and the software had a problem recovering?

I kind of thing something hit it, but it was travailing at 47 mph Horizontal after the trouble is where I'm stuck, and the signal loss at 178' not near 0'. Unless he lifted of at 178', Looking at the log, the OP would have been really tall.

@TBenny

See what DJI says, we all what to know!

Rod