DJI Mandatory, uninterruptible actions are wrong, legally actionable

[Drestin Black]

You are incorrect (and I've stated this several times)... you _can_ control the decent. You can move left, right, forward and back. You can also stop the decent.


You simply want to ignore all of the prior warnings that were given and the users acknowledgement of these warnings. You paint the picture as if the person is just flying along and the drone simply starts to land.

I'll be perfectly clear: the day before, I was flying along, a place I've been before. Everything is fine. No warning. Suddenly it pops up, "You have entered a No Fly Zone" drones goes to hover and the camera goes level to horizon. Then it says "Landing now" (don't remember precise wording) and it begins to go down. I can rotate clockwise and counter clockwise but that is it.
No up or down or holding. No moving in any direction. Can rotate, didn't try adjusting camera. I tried to hit return to home. I tried all the controls I could think off. It just went straight down. At the very end, I lost sight of it due to trees and building. I am incredible lucky it went down closer to the curb and not middle of the road. I've video of the the landing.

This is why my rant: all control was taken other than watching myself go down into potential danger. The manual may say otherwise (I don't know) but I'm reporting what happened to me.


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[N017RW]

Maybe it was a malfunction of some sort.

I've had malfunctions with simpler r/c aircraft for decades.

 

[tcope]

I'll be perfectly clear: the day before, I was flying along, a place I've been before. Everything is fine. No warning. Suddenly it pops up, "You have entered a No Fly Zone" drones goes to hover and the camera goes level to horizon. Then it says "Landing now" (don't remember precise wording) and it begins to go down. I can rotate clockwise and counter clockwise but that is it.
No up or down or holding. No moving in any direction. Can rotate, didn't try adjusting camera. I tried to hit return to home. I tried all the controls I could think off. It just went straight down. At the very end, I lost sight of it due to trees and building. I am incredible lucky it went down closer to the curb and not middle of the road. I've video of the the landing.

This is why my rant: all control was taken other than watching myself go down into potential danger. The manual may say otherwise (I don't know) but I'm reporting what happened to me.


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If you would not mind, please post where this happened. Thanks.

 

[42FrankZ]

The system functioning differently than it is designed is a far different creature than "you have no control whatsoever by design".

You may wish to contact DJI and work with them to see if there is a bug in the software, and this would likely be much more productive than coming up with weird what ifs that wouldn't be an issue if things operated as per design.

 

[Drestin Black]

If you would not mind, please post where this happened. Thanks.

Yup, sending


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[Drestin Black]

The system functioning differently than it is designed is a far different creature than "you have no control whatsoever by design".

You may wish to contact DJI and work with them to see if there is a bug in the software, and this would likely be much more productive than coming up with weird what ifs that wouldn't be an issue if things operated as per design.

I sent it for repair with a facts only report of what happened. This may explain why I'm so angry - it landed and I could do nothing about it


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[tcope]

I'll be perfectly clear: the day before, I was flying along, a place I've been before. Everything is fine. No warning. Suddenly it pops up, "You have entered a No Fly Zone" drones goes to hover and the camera goes level to horizon. Then it says "Landing now" (don't remember precise wording) and it begins to go down. I can rotate clockwise and counter clockwise but that is it.
No up or down or holding. No moving in any direction. Can rotate, didn't try adjusting camera. I tried to hit return to home. I tried all the controls I could think off. It just went straight down. At the very end, I lost sight of it due to trees and building. I am incredible lucky it went down closer to the curb and not middle of the road. I've video of the the landing.

Few issues. This is not how the drone should behave when entering a NFZ and there is no NFZ in the area that you were flying (at least not an area that would prevent any type of flying for at least 5 miles. Nothing on the GEO map.

So I'd need to question exactly why the drone started to land as When entering a NFZ the drone should give a warning and simply stop. It would thern hover if not moved and start to land at critical battery (usually 10%). So none of that behavior is typical of flying within 1.5 miles any GEO point.

You may want to review the flight logs to see what they show. You can upload them to healthydrones.com .

 

[Drestin Black]

Few issues. This is not how the drone should behave when entering a NFZ and there is no NFZ in the area that you were flying (at least not an area that would prevent any type of flying for at least 5 miles. Nothing on the GEO map.

So I'd need to question exactly why the drone started to land as When entering a NFZ the drone should give a warning and simply stop. It would thern hover if not moved and start to land at critical battery (usually 10%). So none of that behavior is typical of flying within 1.5 miles any GEO point.

You may want to review the flight logs to see what they show. You can upload them to healthydrones.com .

I agree it did what i did not expect or want. I had zero warnings.

I guess the logs are encrypted now so it's up to DjI to review them. I'll follow up as I learn more.

Thanks for the convo - helpful!


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[tcope]

I agree it did what i did not expect or want. I had zero warnings.

I guess the logs are encrypted now so it's up to DjI to review them. I'll follow up as I learn more

You have access to some (good) logs from your display device. These can be uploaded to healthydrones.com.

 

[Drestin Black]

You have access to some (good) logs from your display device. These can be uploaded to healthydrones.com.

Ok how the hell have I missed HD?
Using it now, love the info.
Analyzing... Be back shortly. Thank you tcope.


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[Drestin Black]

Here are the notifications:

5:49 you are in a NFZ, auto landing.

Don't understand all the command timeouts, never seen these before.

At 6:22 "Landing Canceled" - really? I estimate by that time it had already touched down, but I don't know. Was out of sight at that point.



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[WetDog]

Sigh ..: way to be distracted from the point.

Ok you are flying over the water, the shore is just 20 feet away. It forces you to auto land and you lose your craft. You could have just eased her over and landed safely but instead drowned.

The point is that as pilot you are in charge of your craft from take off to landing -- except here DJI can take over and force you down.

How many scenarios so I have to make up for the point to be understood / is it really that difficult. No other FAA regulated air system is like this nor
Would it be. Dji is out of alignment.

I don't say get rid of NFZs and restricted take off and warnings; etc. those are safe. What is unsafe is a piece of software taking over for a human pilot without warning and without the ability to override. Unacceptable.

And back to our field of babies? WHO CARES why? Right or wrong doesn't matter. Wanna fine me and take my license away for it? OK ... But I didn't plunge the craft down into them, the software did and the pilot was left unable to prevent this disaster. You fo explain to the parents, well, he is a jerk he was wrong -- sure sure he didn't actually fly poorly or crash himself but let's blame him and not what actually did the crashing.

There must be the ability to override any automagic landings, period.


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The issues surrounding manned and unmanned craft are ** very ** different. A piloted craft has a skilled pilot. Trained to deal with usual and unusual situations. Vetted by the FAA. Of course, this is anything but perfect and lawyers exist who just deal with the field of aviation liability, but what the FAA rules and regulations are for manned aircraft have been honed over a century of flying.

UAVs have neither the trained pilot nor legal and technical history.

DJI is in a really weird position. They are trying to increase the popularity of their products while not enriching your friend the product liability lawyer or his various sub species and cousins. They would certainly like to keep the fanboy who has three Phantoms and and Inspire and who buys accessories and parts on a regular basis. Limiting his (and lets face it, this is a predominantly male field) range or utility isn't a good thing but DJI has to deal with the hoi palloi that barely understand how to get the thing out of the box and charge it. Lots more of that ilk than 'us'. They're they ones that are going to fly over a kindergarten next to an airport (!!!) or some such stupidity.

I'm actually surprised we can fly these things within a 10 mile radius of any town greater than 100 people.

Yes, DJI is going to get yelled at for implementation issues. No way your going to please everyone. Recall they have backed away from the Geofencing beta that they pushed out a while back. The current system is much less obtrusive. And still annoying. Hell, it's 'annoying' to fly a real plane. Have to go to the airport, pass security, do the checklists, file a flight plan, talk to the tower. Sit behind the 737. Get bumped by the medivac jet. Not fly over the dam. Follow the sectionals. Blah blah.

I suppose in the middle of the African savannah you can dispense with a lot of this, but then again there probably are few NFZs there.

And yes, you can attempt to sue DJI for a whole raft of things. Your product liability lawyer probably makes a living doing that sort of things. But you can slant legal issues many ways (just get more than one lawyer in a room). I personally think that you're barking up a shaky tree, but YMMV.

Do keep us posted.

 

[WetDog]

Here are the notifications:

5:49 you are in a NFZ, auto landing.

Don't understand all the command timeouts, never seen these before.

At 6:22 "Landing Canceled" - really? I estimate by that time it had already touched down, but I don't know. Was out of sight at that point.



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You have other issues besides the autoland command (which was cancelled eventually). You have sketchy communication between the RC and AC.

What is your 'Return to Home' setting?

 

[Drestin Black]

You have other issues besides the autoland command (which was cancelled eventually). You have sketchy communication between the RC and AC.

What is your 'Return to Home' setting?

RTH is the default go back to where you took off setting, set to rise to 100m first (lot of tall buildings)

All these command timeouts occur after the false NFZ message and initiation of auto land. I was in no such zone, there isn't one there. Once auto land started I could do nothing else. The "cancel" came after the craft had already landed lol! Video was being captured the entire time and I was very lucky to have missed hitting anything on the way down, very lucky.

All in all, Something faulty happened here. First, false NFZ. Also, I didn't get any warnings as I'm told I should have. And others keep telling me I should have had control during this banding, I didn't. This is why I'm "ranting" because -during my experience- nothing worked as I'm being told it "should have."




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[Drestin Black]

The issues surrounding manned and unmanned craft are ** very ** different. A piloted craft has a skilled pilot. Trained to deal with usual and unusual situations. Vetted by the FAA.
UAVs have neither the trained pilot nor legal and technical history.

-snip-

And yes, you can attempt to sue DJI for a whole raft of things. Your product liability lawyer probably makes a living doing that sort of things. But you can slant legal issues many ways (just get more than one lawyer in a room). I personally think that you're barking up a shaky tree, but YMMV.

I don't plan to sue anyone, I just happen to know a product liability attorney who gave me some free advice. I don't disagree with things you wrote. However, us unskilled folks and veteran real pilots face real world fines and criminal charges, etc. the FAA is legally gonna treat us the same as that 747 pilot so the responsibilities of the equipment makers has to be up to par to those responsibilities. And all I'm pushing for is more safety. I'm not asking to remove NFZs, I want safer and responsible pilot control restored.


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[BigAl07]

I'd guess you have some sensor issues with your aircraft.... possibly GPS related.

Also didn't I see you had some whacky "max altitude" thread where you got an error around 40' ?

Keep in mind that there is Night & Day difference between the equipment in our toys and even the most simple manned aircraft. We don't want the FAA to hold our equipment manufacturers to the same standards or we won't have a hobby. They require multiple levels of redundancy, testing, and certification to the point of insanity. All of this equals Time, Weight, and more importantly $$$. Can you imagine what would happen if we had an FAA "Certified" Phantom 4? I'd guess starting price would be about $20K. Remember we are flying toys and the quality and such are right in line with that category of equipment.

 

[WetDog]

RTH is the default go back to where you took off setting, set to rise to 100m first (lot of tall buildings)

All these command timeouts occur after the false NFZ message and initiation of auto land. I was in no such zone, there isn't one there. Once auto land started I could do nothing else. The "cancel" came after the craft had already landed lol! Video was being captured the entire time and I was very lucky to have missed hitting anything on the way down, very lucky.

All in all, Something faulty happened here. First, false NFZ. Also, I didn't get any warnings as I'm told I should have. And others keep telling me I should have had control during this banding, I didn't. This is why I'm "ranting" because -during my experience- nothing worked as I'm being told it "should have."




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Welcome to DJI software.

It is quite possible that, due to loss of comms, the aircraft did not respond to the NFZ warning appropriately. What we, and DJI, needs to see it the detailed log files to see if there is any obvious or semi obvious issue. That said, those logs don't deal with comms issues as well as we would like. But the point here is that you describe an unusual event. An interesting one even. It's a bit early to invoke the product liability lawyers here, IMHO, as nowhere-near-perfect software is more the expectation these days rather than the exception.

And, no, DJI is NOT held to the same standard as Airbus or Boeing. Way back when, during the run up to the 107 rule set, the FAA did basically a wild-***-guess to determine the risks to persons and property from an uncontrolled light UAV crash. I don't recall the methodology (a series of guesses, assumptions and simple algebra, IIRC) but the end calc was that it was exceedingly unlikely that any random crash of a Phantom class (less than 2 kg or so) UAV would result in significant bodily harm or property damage. They used this to decide that complex and restrictive rules were unnecessary for this type of aircraft.

So the infant Cusinart scenario was deemed unlikely enough not to worry about. Still could happen, of course.

But regular readers here understand that these things are 1) complex 2) immature and inexpensive 3) created by a company that is trying to make money by making an appliance out of an aircraft that can run in the National Airspace System. A combo that is pretty unique and perfectly weird if you think about it enough.

I, for one, am unsuprised that it took the FAA as long to figure out the rule set as it did. We're going to have some interesting times here.

So thanks for ranting, it's interesting. A bit more technical info might help you out (the logs). I'd stay away from the lawyers, if I were you, but that is a personal decision, of course.

 

[Drestin Black]

I'd guess you have some sensor issues with your aircraft.... possibly GPS related.

Also didn't I see you had some whacky "max altitude" thread where you got an error around 40' ?

Keep in mind that there is Night & Day difference between the equipment in our toys and even the most simple manned aircraft. We don't want the FAA to hold our equipment manufacturers to the same standards or we won't have a hobby. -snip- Remember we are flying toys and the quality and such are right in line with that category of equipment.

Note: all the issues begin the moment I got the erroneous NFZ message and auto landing was forced.

In that Max Altitude thread my p4 was obeying a max altitude value I can't explain whence it came! Otherwise working fine.

My point, despite our gear being "hobbyist" the FAA will legally and criminally treat us as if we were "real" pilots, so we need to be fully capable of controlling of "toys" at all times. I don't want to auto land into a busy highway!


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[Drestin Black]

Welcome to DJI software.
-snip-
So thanks for ranting, it's interesting. A bit more technical info might help you out (the logs). I'd stay away from the lawyers, if I were you, but that is a personal decision, of course.

I scuba with this lawyer who's friend, he just threw his 2 cents in. The FAA and juries aren't going to distinguish, so our tools to fly our "toys" do Ned to give us as much control as is reasonable. I maintain, a pilot should always have total control over all systems, manual or automatic, of his craft.

I have the logs and the only items of any note I posted above, what else should I be looking for?

I am beginning to chalk this up to a bug in the software. After all, version 1.9.2 came out with "bug fixes" pretty quick after 1.9.1 (which is what I flew at that time) and, unlike what I keep being told, I did not have any control over the landing. Just trying to figure it out, not sue anyone.


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[GPSMapNut]

You had a warning. It clearly shows in line B. You did not use caution as advised and flew over a highway which you shouldn't have done regardless of the warning status.

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