Dji software caused to lost my drone

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I lost my Dji phantom 3 advanced some hours ago. The app just crashed on Google Pixel XL, Android 8.1, Feb patch with the lastest Dji software before phantom 4, updated all the time.
Why they are not responsible for their software?



DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com/
DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com/

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones
Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones



These are the log files, this is just one flight, no landing just the crashing app that lead to this. I tried to search for but I couldn't find the drone... Who I should write to ? Thanks guys, this is the last hope...
 
video
Go to 4:15...
Also this is the last part of the video recording. The first one is corrupted. I don't know why... How to find the drone ? The area is full of green zone...

There are 2 websites and the logs are from 2 parts.
 
Last edited:
@AlexHn,
Welcome to the Forum!

Sorry for your lost, scary looking flight, Be prepared for some bashing, they will come.

I'm not a pro at this, but my first impression is wind kept it from returning home.

Let me summon a few pros, I have to leave soon.

Rod
 
Also the photos from the Dji App.
 

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wow......when it auto landed that battery was at ONLY 15% a very critical time for a battery ! ..some body else here is going to have to dig farther in the logs..Do i under stand this right.......you have had a lots of experience in flying a drone Of none at all ! Software don't cause a drone to be lost..stand By for many more ideas ! how soon do you get to the last place the drone was...theirs a chance some body seen it land and took off with it...hope Not !
 
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How did the app crashing cause the drone to be be lost?

You should still have had control of the drone with the remote controller.
 
I'm not a pro at this, but my first impression is wind kept it from returning home.
This seems likely to me as well.

Who I should write to ?
@AlexHn - First off, flying at such an irresponsible altitude would likely subject the phantom to strong winds. It appears that your phantom just blew away as soon as RTH commenced and by the end of the logs it was more than 1500 feet further away from you then when RTH began.
 
I lost my Dji phantom 3 advanced some hours ago. The app just crashed on Google Pixel XL, Android 8.1, Feb patch with the lastest Dji software before phantom 4, updated all the time.
Why they are not responsible for their software?

These are the log files, this is just one flight, no landing just the crashing app that lead to this. I tried to search for but I couldn't find the drone... Who I should write to ? Thanks guys, this is the last hope...
What makes you say that DJI software caused the loss of the Phantom?
That's not what the data shows.
Your app crashed mid flight (probably an issue with your phone or tablet caused this) but that had no effect on the flight as the Phantom continued to attempt RTH while the app was off.

The problem that caused the loss of the Phantom was all due to the way it was operated and could have easily been avoided if the pilot had any experience and understanding of how the Phantom works and how to fly it.
The Phantom was flown up to 500 metres without any input from the right joystick.
At height the Phantom would have been trying to hold position but it was drifting at 1-5 metres/sec away from the home point.
This indicates that conditions up at 500 metres were gusty and the wind was stronger than the Phantom could fight against.
At that point (or sooner) the pilot should have brought the Phantom down out of the strong wind but it was left at 500 metres, gradually being blown away.
At 9:18 RTH was initiated and the Phantom continued to be blown away.
It was 619 metres from home at that point.
The pilot left the Phantom up at 500 metres and made no effort to take control.
RTH (which flies at 10 m/s in still air) couldn't make headway against the headwind and the Phantom was blown further away. etc, etc.

The flight data ends at 15:22 with the Phantom being manually flown at full speed - but heading further away from home due to pilot disorientation.
Battery level was critically low 15% and 14.0V, 1013 metres from home and 193 metres altitude.
If the battery was still working, the Phantom would have initiated autolanding again after signal was lost and come down somewhere near 41.36911 2.1554.
Perhaps it had enough battery to land safely or maybe the battery gave out while still descending.

Wind speed is always significantly higher at altitude than ground level. There are ways to get a feel for this to avoid losing your drone.
RTH is a slow driver. It cruises at 10 m/s but you can drive at 16 m/s (still air speeds).
If the Phantom is trying to push against a wind stronger than 10 m/s, it's going to be blown backwards until battery level triggers autolanding

It's very important to be aware of wind strength and direction.
Note how much the wind slows your Phantom if you try to fly directly into it.
Never fly away downwind in a strong wind situation - you will have a tough headwind to fight to get back home.
Never leave your Phantom up high fighting a headwind. Bring it down where the wind is less.
 
This seems likely to me as well.


@AlexHn - First off, flying at such an irresponsible altitude would likely subject the phantom to strong winds. It appears that your phantom just blew away as soon as RTH commenced and by the end of the logs it was more than 1500 feet further away from you then when RTH began.
Then The battery went Extremely Low / dead ! "Drone down" ! that area had to have a whole lots of interference with the signal too ! How many hours of droning do you have "beginner".. "Advanced Beginner"... Or "Experienced Drone pilot"! (This was posted the same time Meta4 s was )
 
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Hello Alex and welcome to the forum.

I think the explanations above pretty well hit the nail on the head so I won't expand there.

I do want to emphasize that the Ap Crashing (for whatever reason) is not the cause of the crash. Even when the Ap/Phone/Tablet crashes you still have control of the aircraft and you should be in a situation where you can guide the aircraft back to a safe and uneventful landing. At the very least be able to hover the aircraft and try to resolve the ap/tablet/phone issue.

Hopefully you can use the information from @Meta4 and go back and find your aircraft intact.
 
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Sounds like user error, not software error. It's not DJI's fault that you didn't put a ceiling cap on the height, and it's not DJI's fault that you were not able to fly via line-of-sight (an essential skill to know for this very reason). 500m is entirely unnecessary, and you should put a ceiling limit on it well below that. Being that mine cruised at 35+mph, it's not a slow drone, either. You should have lowered it by around 400m and brought it home.
 
Sounds like user error, not software error. It's not DJI's fault that you didn't put a ceiling cap on the height, and it's not DJI's fault that you were not able to fly via line-of-sight (an essential skill to know for this very reason). 500m is entirely unnecessary, and you should put a ceiling limit on it well below that. Being that mine cruised at 35+mph, it's not a slow drone, either. You should have lowered it by around 400m and brought it home.
Still wondering if this was the very first flight he made in that area with the big buildings and trees...we might never know i recon Oh well !..."just nick"...great advice and questions i have to agree !
 
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What makes you say that DJI software caused the loss of the Phantom?
That's not what the data shows.
Your app crashed mid flight (probably an issue with your phone or tablet caused this) but that had no effect on the flight as the Phantom continued to attempt RTH while the app was off.

The problem that caused the loss of the Phantom was all due to the way it was operated and could have easily been avoided if the pilot had any experience and understanding of how the Phantom works and how to fly it.
The Phantom was flown up to 500 metres without any input from the right joystick.
At height the Phantom would have been trying to hold position but it was drifting at 1-5 metres/sec away from the home point.
This indicates that conditions up at 500 metres were gusty and the wind was stronger than the Phantom could fight against.
At that point (or sooner) the pilot should have brought the Phantom down out of the strong wind but it was left at 500 metres, gradually being blown away.
At 9:18 RTH was initiated and the Phantom continued to be blown away.
It was 619 metres from home at that point.
The pilot left the Phantom up at 500 metres and made no effort to take control.
RTH (which flies at 10 m/s in still air) couldn't make headway against the headwind and the Phantom was blown further away. etc, etc.

The flight data ends at 15:22 with the Phantom being manually flown at full speed - but heading further away from home due to pilot disorientation.
Battery level was critically low 15% and 14.0V, 1013 metres from home and 193 metres altitude.
If the battery was still working, the Phantom would have initiated autolanding again after signal was lost and come down somewhere near 41.36911 2.1554.
Perhaps it had enough battery to land safely or maybe the battery gave out while still descending.

Wind speed is always significantly higher at altitude than ground level. There are ways to get a feel for this to avoid losing your drone.
RTH is a slow driver. It cruises at 10 m/s but you can drive at 16 m/s (still air speeds).
If the Phantom is trying to push against a wind stronger than 10 m/s, it's going to be blown backwards until battery level triggers autolanding

It's very important to be aware of wind strength and direction.
Note how much the wind slows your Phantom if you try to fly directly into it.
Never fly away downwind in a strong wind situation - you will have a tough headwind to fight to get back home.
Never leave your Phantom up high fighting a headwind. Bring it down where the wind is less.

It's surprising that it made any progress at all. The AirData computed wind speeds are far too high:

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones
 
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What makes you say that DJI software caused the loss of the Phantom?
That's not what the data shows.
Your app crashed mid flight (probably an issue with your phone or tablet caused this) but that had no effect on the flight as the Phantom continued to attempt RTH while the app was off.

The problem that caused the loss of the Phantom was all due to the way it was operated and could have easily been avoided if the pilot had any experience and understanding of how the Phantom works and how to fly it.
The Phantom was flown up to 500 metres without any input from the right joystick.
At height the Phantom would have been trying to hold position but it was drifting at 1-5 metres/sec away from the home point.
This indicates that conditions up at 500 metres were gusty and the wind was stronger than the Phantom could fight against.
At that point (or sooner) the pilot should have brought the Phantom down out of the strong wind but it was left at 500 metres, gradually being blown away.
At 9:18 RTH was initiated and the Phantom continued to be blown away.
It was 619 metres from home at that point.
The pilot left the Phantom up at 500 metres and made no effort to take control.
RTH (which flies at 10 m/s in still air) couldn't make headway against the headwind and the Phantom was blown further away. etc, etc.

The flight data ends at 15:22 with the Phantom being manually flown at full speed - but heading further away from home due to pilot disorientation.
Battery level was critically low 15% and 14.0V, 1013 metres from home and 193 metres altitude.
If the battery was still working, the Phantom would have initiated autolanding again after signal was lost and come down somewhere near 41.36911 2.1554.
Perhaps it had enough battery to land safely or maybe the battery gave out while still descending.

Wind speed is always significantly higher at altitude than ground level. There are ways to get a feel for this to avoid losing your drone.
RTH is a slow driver. It cruises at 10 m/s but you can drive at 16 m/s (still air speeds).
If the Phantom is trying to push against a wind stronger than 10 m/s, it's going to be blown backwards until battery level triggers autolanding

It's very important to be aware of wind strength and direction.
Note how much the wind slows your Phantom if you try to fly directly into it.
Never fly away downwind in a strong wind situation - you will have a tough headwind to fight to get back home.
Never leave your Phantom up high fighting a headwind. Bring it down where the wind is less.
The point that got me nervous was that the RTH point after the app crashed just changed and drone was already landing, I think there I lost myself, well not so experienced but I have flown a phantom 4 pro multiple times, never happened to me to be in the same situation. About the wind I guess that I didn't paid attention and I think that is my fault, I was thinking that at hight altitude the wind will be so powerful. I have to search more at that location, still hope to find it back... Even if it a crashed. I have an another one crashed also by a friend. In this case about the coordinates, in the video that I've uploaded, seems that the drone went far away from what GPS was indicating...
 
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What is alarming, apart from your altitude much higher than safe to fly is the auto landing speed of almost 50mph and 15% battery....... I'd search for bits of plastic and metal in that intersection near the last known ping.......
 
The point that got me nervous was that the RTH point after the app crashed just changed and drone was already landing, I think there I lost myself, well not so experienced but I have flown a phantom 4 pro multiple times, never happened to me to be in the same situation. About the wind I guess that I didn't paid attention and I think that is my fault, I was thinking that at hight altitude the wind will be so powerful. I have to search more at that location, still hope to find it back... Even if it a crashed. I have an another one crashed also by a friend. In this case about the coordinates, in the video that I've uploaded, seems that the drone went far away from what GPS was indicating...

FlyState switched to smart autolanding at 781.7 s and 28% battery (rather than at the 15% "serious low battery" level that you had set) because the smart battery estimated landing time had exceeded the estimated remaining flight time at that level of power output.
 
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I wish DJI creates another flyaway safe mode which gets the aircraft down up to the set safe limit until aircraft is able to hold its position.
 
FlyState switched to smart autolanding at 781.7 s and 28% battery (rather than at the 15% "serious low battery" level that you had set) because the smart battery estimated landing time had exceeded the estimated remaining flight time at that level of power output.
So your thought is it probably ran out of battery before it landed?

Wow, I was in a hurry, I didn't even catch the 40+ mph at 600+' during the end of auto landing, was just looking that home point was increasing. :eek:

Rod
 
I wish DJI creates another flyaway safe mode which gets the aircraft down up to the set safe limit until aircraft is able to hold its position.
Yeah I like that.
But DJI might sell less Phantoms. :rolleyes: ;)

Rod
 

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