The day my drone got lost
Here's a story I wrote up to DJI regarding my Phantom 4 drone getting lost, because their app crashed. This happened while filming with @accadacca in Moab a couple of weeks ago.
Long story, but worth the read.
While on a shoot in Moab Utah, I was telling my buddy how great my DJI Phantom 4 drone was, that I hadn’t had a single issue in my estimated 60 flights in the past year.
The first shoot we did was easy, dirt road East of Moab maybe 20 miles, shooting his group of motorcycles from multiple angles. Then we went to our next location, Onion Creek about 3 miles further up the highway. We drive up the dirt road crossing the stream maybe 7 times before we pick a spot to shoot from.
We coordinate the shot, the angles and distances for the bikes to drive. I launch and everything seems good. I line up the shot, observing the path and obstacles. There is an abundance of towering red rock making for some great scenery.
I’m following the riders and keeping an eye on the connection status. It’s time to turn around, and I decide to stop the video snap a photo.
This photo
http://www.phantompilots.com/attachm...01-jpeg.82873/
This is where the DJI GO 4 app decides to crash!!!! Granted, it’s only about 300 feet away from the controller, and I’ve set it to return home upon signal loss, so all I need to do is wait. As it’s supposedly on it’s way back, I’m going to load the app again and try to connect, maybe I’ll connect on the way back and we can continue the shoot without a full landing. The app loads finally and I attempt to connect. Well this happens ALL THE TIME when I’ve got to reload the app, and Phantom 4 PRO is selected by default, when I only have the standard Phantom 4. I realize this and close out of the app once again and surely this time I’ll connect to the correct device.
I’m not hearing or seeing my drone at the moment, nerves get a little more tensed.
It should be on it’s way back.
I look down at the map inside the app, and my heart drops. It says “Home” is the last location we shot, 4 miles away!!!!!! Full on panic. I hop in my car and shout at the bikers as I pass them, holding the remote out the window with one hand, steering through river crossings and a bumpy dirt road “I’ve gotta go my drone just flew back to the last shot location!!!” to which they replied with sympathetic “Whoa no”.
Finally out on the highway, still holding my controller out the window in vain, hoping to see something, ANYTHING! No such luck.
ARRRGGHHHGHGHG there are mountain bikers on the 2 lane highway and there’s a line of cars waiting to pass them one by one. HURRY! My drone has to be landing now in the middle of that dirt road, I MUST get to it before a jeep runs right over it.
Finally I see the turnoff coming up as I’m still frantically looking to the sky, maybe I’m lucky enough that it is descending now. I park and get out, to my building panic, it’s not there. Did it run out of battery, was the flight distance too long? Still nothing on the app.
I look at where I just drove from and I have a visual straight line of flight. I’m running out in the desert, checking every sagebrush, jumping every sagebrush in my path. This continues for 20 minutes. Oh and no cellular service, so if something happens, they can’t contact me. Did it hit my critical battery level and start descending where it was? If I find it, how bad will the damage be, will I ever fly it again? Will I ever fly ANY drone again? I may not be able to recover from this. Plus, all of my footage was on it, the shoot I did for these guys is going to be a bunch of wasted time. We drove 4 hours from home to get here!
One of the riders finds me and rolls up, asks what I’m doing. I explain I can’t find it, it’s lost, and this is the first and only “incident” I’ve had with this drone.
Now there are a few times in a man’s life where he hears something from somebody, and it classifies as a lifetime ranking experience. He says my drone LANDED right where I launched from over on Onion Creek! He said it landed so straight and smooth, they thought I was controlling it from somewhere.
Huge tidal wave of relief!. That’s the closest I’ve come to kissing a grown man. A handshake will do.
We all head back to Onion Creek and I’ve never been so happy to see my Phantom 4 sitting right there, without a scratch, and still 50% battery. It had operated and landed EXACTLY AS ADVERTISED!!!
So what happened? Because the app crashed, it loaded again and still had Home pointing to the first shoot. I noticed all of my pre-loaded maps had disappeared too, this happens every time for me when the app crashes. I take careful preparation to load the maps into the app before I head out to a remote area. That app crashes, and all gone.
So the drone correctly recorded the last launch point and returned straight back to it, like an angel slowly descending out of heaven clothed in white.
Great job on the reliability of the Phantom 4, but that app MUST BE FIXED!!!!!
