Lost my drone in the drink!

[Doginabag]

Having only been on this forum for a week, I wasn’t expecting to be making this post any time soon. But here we are…

This morning I got into work far too early so decided to head down to tower bridge and get a couple of shots. I had been at the same spot just a week earlier with no issues at all but wanted to re-take a couple of shots that I wasn’t overly happy with.

I was keeping to the East of the bridge so not flying within any restricted areas, maintaining VLOS and with good signal. Weather was good with virtually no wind.

Flying had been good with no issues at all, got a few shots that I wanted and then moved back towards the North bank. Hovered in one spot for a while to frame another shot, decided it wasn’t going to be anything worthwhile and with ~30% battery remaining decided to bring it home.

At this point the drone would not move, it seemed like the right stick was completely unresponsive. Left stick was still good, I could ascend and descend as well as rotate the drone, I could control the gimbal and control recording. Everything was working perfectly, except for forward/back and left/right.

Tried using return to home and it ascended to the pre-set height of 10mm and then just sat there. So rather than being a control issue I am thinking something up with the GPS, it was like the drone had got itself locked into a position where it though that it could not go anywhere, despite the fact I was not in any restricted zones.

All this time the battery was depleting until it got down to a level where the forced landing kicked in. It was only a couple of meters off from being able to land on a private jetty, but even that I could not move to so just sat back and watched it sink. That’s a sickening feeling I can tell you!

Map of the incident below. Red spot is where the drone went down, blue is where I was standing.

The drone is a DJI mini 3 pro, which I have only had for a few weeks. Not had any issues like this until now. I have the care refresh plan so getting a replacement should not be a problem, but I somewhat begrudge paying out an excess for what as far as I can tell is down to an issue with the drone itself.

Before I get in touch with DJI, does anyone have any advice on how to handle a claim, or even been successful in making a warranty claim and not using the care refresh plan? How long does a replacement take? I am away again in a couple of weeks where I would have liked to have taken this with me which is just another annoyance.

[uav_hampshire]

I think you very sadly lost what I just managed to survive.

Does my below post sound familiar?

Squeaky bum moment at Tower Bridge

So I was flying at various locations around East London this morning and decided to pop down to Hermitage Gdns and grab a few shots above the Thames. Took off and all was going well, perfect signal, light winds etc, line of sight etc. As I neared the lock entrance to St Katherine’s the GPS signal went and the controller lost connection for a very brief period… well to me it seemed like ages at the time but the weird thing is it seemed like something had taken control of it! I couldn’t move for…

[GunjaFPV]

@Doginabag

but I somewhat begrudge paying out an excess for what as far as I can tell is down to an issue with the drone itself.

If you have airdata get it setup and the flight logs on it. If the drone failed to response to sticks and you should be able to proove that I think DJI might replace outside of the care refresh scheme. Especially as it’s so new. their support is fantastic.

Edit: So sorry to hear of the loss…

[Kirky]

@Doginabag

Before I get in touch with DJI, does anyone have any advice

Download the Airdata on here, for one of the guys who know how to anaylise it properly to see what went wrong, tagging @SparkyFPV

[SparkyFPV]

@Doginabag

Like the others have said we need the Airdata

[Doginabag]

Yes that sounds exactly the same as what happened to me this morning. Glad to hear you managed to get yours back safely!

[Doginabag]

OK thanks. Let me see if I can work out how to do that.

[uav_hampshire]

@Doginabag

Yes that sounds exactly the same as what happened to me this morning.

When you took off , did you receive a pop up warning that you were near an Authorisation Zone (HMS President which has recently become an AZ) or an Enhanced Warning Zone?

[Kirky]

Do you have Airdata account @Doginabag ?
If not set one up, you can get a freebie which lets you download up to a 100 flights before you have to upgrade / subscription, if I can remember rightly.

[Doginabag]

Pretty sure there wasn’t.
I think something pinged up while I was flying at some point, but I was watching the drone and not the screen, and disappeared again by the time I stopped to check. I gave it a minute but couldn’t see anything to be concerned about so carried on.

[uav_hampshire]

After my extremely close call I’m done with that particular area. There’s other TOAL locations further down the river that are listed on dronescene. I uploaded one in particular not long back.

I hope you get flying again soon.

[PingSpike]

I can’t help feeling there’s some weird going on at that stretch of the water.

Too much of a coincidence

[uav_hampshire]

@PingSpike

I can’t help feeling there’s some weird going on at that stretch of the water.

Too much of a coincidence

Absolutely agree with you there!!

[RestlessZombi]

As something purely theoretical but maybe possible. That area is relatively small and has a lot of businesses around, i wonder if once you get higher or that bit too far away the signal gets tangled with the 5G wifi signals from the close buildings and shops.

[uav_hampshire]

From a good knowledge of that area there are no shops as such in that immediate locality of HMS President. The retail units are further into St Katherine’s Dock. There are some businesses around that immediate area but I’d think nothing too overly that could possibly affect the signal? @OzoneVibe previously mentioned in my thread the possibility of the festering WiFi from the residential apartments alongside the river.

But I’m just wondering another possibility… Both @Doginabag and myself it both looks like we strayed into the HMS President Authorisation Zone and this is where all the issues began. It might be totally unrelated re signal but as @PingSpike has mentioned, there’s too much of a coincidence in both our incidents.

It makes you think is there other technology here at play?

[SparkyFPV]

@PingSpike

I can’t help feeling there’s some weird going on at that stretch of the water.

The amount of DJI restrictions around that area, coupled with all the other frequency interference I bet that Mini-3 threw a wobbler

These sorts of issues will have never been tested or debugged by DJI

[Doginabag]

Going to have to sit down tonight and sort out the flight log properly, but for now I have managed to get a few low tech screen grabs from the controller.

Also I am not familiar with HMS President, but I can’t see anything about it on the DJI map.

[uav_hampshire]

@Doginabag

Also I am not familiar with HMS President, but I can’t see anything about it on the DJI map.

The site is highlighted in blue on your bottom image…

[PingSpike]

This picture, combined with the warning on your screen, suggests you were butted up against a DJI invisible wall (geo-fence) which is why you could go up and down, but not forwards. My red finger-painting is where I think the DJI restriction is.

This area in blue on this DJI GEO map seems to align with your experience:

If you had moved to the right, back out over the water, you could have then flown forwards and back home to safety

DJI, man

[Gham]

Sorry for your loss
Something else to be mindful of is HMS Belfast has an amateur radio station on board not sure if still operating? The club I used to belong to most of the operators came from, they were quite regimented in operating every day. They transmit. on all frequencies they can at high power, some not to legal.