I'm currently in Lofoten Islands, today I was returning my drone home after a brief flight with a fully charged battery, signal was strong, I was only 800ft away then suddenly I lost the signal and since then I don't know where my drone is. I don't know if it fell, RTH (seems not) or what. There's a lot of snow at its last position and became dark shortly after. Weather was just a little snowy, 32° F.
This is the log: https://app.airdata.com/share/cClGMs
And this is the last cached video: https://youtube.com/shorts/ALKZzTDOJxs?feature=share

What do you think happened?
Where do you think I should watch for my drone? Curiously, in Find my drone, the arrow isn't aligned with the direction the drone was following.

Tomorrow morning I'll take a look around at its last position but I've already had two briefly tries with no luck.

Thanks

Hi

Nice area to fly a drone!  been there  ;-)

If i draw line from your position to drone last postion...the direct line does not reach your drone.

For good up / down link RC<>drone  you need also a 'light of sight' for radio signals.

Your RTH setting 100 meter, so it should fly to HP at a disconnect.Flying at 46 meters baro height, so at last postion about 30 meters above ground level last postion.
Video does not show any high obstacle in the path to home....So no clue what happend.

Last heading, as seen in the video, is also seen in the log. So compass heading oke.


cheers
JJB    [ Charts by FRAP ; the 'best' software for data and visual flightlog analysis (www.jjbfrap.eu) ]

JJB* Posted at 2-15 12:51
Hi

Nice area to fly a drone!  been there  ;-)

Idk if I fully understood your comment. From the video I posted I can see where I was, I see myself in the video! Signal was good even at the farthest point where I was even lower in altitude, with no los.

dtpancio Posted at 2-15 13:00
Idk if I fully understood your comment. From the video I posted I can see where I was, I see myself in the video! Signal was good even at the farthest point where I was even lower in altitude, with no los.

only in the last record a downlink value op zero + warning.

Thanks JJB, previously I was quoting a partial post of yours, did you edited it?

So what could have happened? A power failure? From the cold? From the light rain/snow?

What do you think is the most probable outcome? Dropped dead some meters further on its path due to inertia? It never came home and I never regained signal so I think it shut down.

dtpancio Posted at 2-15 13:15
Thanks JJB, previously I was quoting a partial post of yours, did you edited it?

So what could have happened? A power failure? From the cold? From the light rain/snow?

add a chart. yes

No idea what happend, if power loss than due to inertia falling to the ground in fly direction.
Battery temp at start 14 degrees, last record 19 degrees, looks normal values to me.
Light rain or snow does not cause a drone to stop flying.

cheers
JJB

dtpancio Posted at 2-15 13:15
Thanks JJB, previously I was quoting a partial post of yours, did you edited it?

So what could have happened? A power failure? From the cold? From the light rain/snow?

Your drone's Failsafe Action was set to RTH.
There was a clear, unobstructed line of sight between you and the drone, with no obstacles to block signal or RTH path.
Battery levels were good, with no indication of battery temperature issues.
Distance from home was only 245 metres.
Winds were light.

As the drone didn't return home on loss of signal and there are no other things that could have prevented the drone from returning on loss of signal, the most likely cause is that signal was lost because of a sudden power loss.
The cause of that is not obvious in the data.

If your drone suffered power loss, it will have fallen to the ground and may be difficult to find in the snow.

The location it was last recorded was near the road at 68.15481   13.51586.
But at the time it was flying toward the home point at 10 metres/sec.
On losing power, it will have kept its forward momentum while falling, so it should be closer to your homepoint than the last recorded location.
The fall would have taken approx 3 seconds and the drone could be approx 30 metres closer to your homepoint.
I would search around a point at 68.15466   13.51567.
I've shown a likely search area as a circle in the attached image.

Hello, there. It's truly unfortunate to hear about the mishap that happened on your recent flight. May I confirm if you managed to report this incident to our support? Please know that a data analysis can be conducted to determine the cause you the incident, and a possible warranty can be provided based on the investigation as long as the drone is within the warranty service period. If you wish to get in touch with our support, kindly contact us at www.dji.com/support We thank you for your cooperation and support.

DJI Gamora Posted at 2-15 22:09
Hello, there. It's truly unfortunate to hear about the mishap that happened on your recent flight. May I confirm if you managed to report this incident to our support? Please know that a data analysis can be conducted to determine the cause you the incident, and a possible warranty can be provided based on the investigation as long as the drone is within the warranty service period. If you wish to get in touch with our support, kindly contact us at www.dji.com/support We thank you for your cooperation and support.

Thanks Gamora, I submitted my flyaway appliance.

dtpancio Posted at 2-15 22:38
Thanks Gamora, I submitted my flyaway appliance.

You're most welcome. Rest assured that your case will be handled accordingly. Please feel free to reach us if you have further queries.

well, if it was below freezing point, high humidity, maybe light rain/show, it is also possible that some ice formed on the propellers and there was just not enough lift to keep the drone in the air?

I'm back in Italy and yesterday the courier delivered a free of charge DJI Mini 3 Pro and battery to me! What a service!

This is from DJI Support:

Your data analysis is already finished and I would like to share the conclusion with you below:

Flight Data： 2024-02-15 23:28:13 GMT+8
Mc ID:1581F4XFD224T006D7QK  FLY(101)

1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode after took off
2. Flight Time T=04:04, Relative Height H=46.2m, Distance to Home Point D=249.6m, the record ended
3. The last coordinate68.1547953, 13.5158331), Home Point68.1530087, 13.5121820)

As a conclusion, according to the analysis, the root cause of the incident could not be verified, due to interrupted app record. We kindly advise you to please pay attention to the flight environment and to fly with caution

However, we truly appreciate your support for DJI and you are very important to us as a customer. So since your product is under the warranty period, if the aircraft cannot be recovered, I would like to offer you a replacement DJI Mini 3 Pro aircraft, propellers and battery (without the remote controller and battery charger) free of charge.

They probably concluded it wasn't my fault and some technical issue took place and since the drone is under warranty they decided to replace it.

In any case, I'm astonished in every way. This is how you build customer loyalty!
Now all I can do is hope that when the snow will melt, the couple who lives nearby will find my lost drone and retrieve my lost photos.

Thanks to all of you, especially DJI

dtpancio Posted at 2-22 02:05
I'm back in Italy and yesterday the courier delivered a free of charge DJI Mini 3 Pro and battery to me! What a service!

This is from DJI Support:

HI,

Great news for you and all other customers.

Many happy landings,
cheers
JJB