Had a bit of a scary flight with my mavic today. Started the flight with about 50-60% battery on my iPhone 6 plus, hadn't realised how fast the battery drained, probably didn't help that it was pretty cold today.

So a bit stupidly I decided to do a point of interest flight near the end.
I was just about to finish when the battery died on my iphone. At this point I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to exit the point of interest flight without access to the phone screen. I couldnt manually control the drone apart from rotating around the point of interest and couldn't seem to bring it in, even though it wasnt that far from me. I eventually managed to get it down to about head height but it wouldnt land (I'm not sure if this was because it was still in the point of interest mode and while in that mode it cannot land or drop below a certain height. At this point the battery on the drone was getting low, I guess I should have just let the battery completely drain and it would of auto landed, but I was a little worried it was going to take off and perform a RTH. So I decided to catch it from underneath, while holding it and it was desperately trying to rise, I couldn't turn it off (left stick down or combination stick command). Eventually probably even more stupidly and not really sure how, I pulled the battery out (I guess this is not a clever move either, could this damage the drone or battery).

What should I have done in this situation and when you lose the app due to the battery dying and you are in point of interest or follow mode how do you exit this mode.

Well, this thread proves that the decision to remove the "charge phone while connected to remote" function was actually a stupid idea from DJI

RTH should kick in when battery reached critical level, you could have used RTH on the controller at anytime you don't need the app to fly the aircraft, how to cancel POI I'm not sure as I don't have my Mavic yet. Pulling the battery can't be good , but charge it and just make sure it's ok.
Preparation is very important before you fly, battery phone charged, also use this experience to learn .

Well isnt there a BIG RED button right on the RC with a PAUSE symbol on it? Its to pause all intelligent flight modes. I havent recieved my mavic yet but ive read the manual already...

I assume that p.33 in the manual / Flight Pause button applies.

The self-destruct would be handy in these situations - flyaway AVERTED!  Errr, that red button is pause sorry.
That sure seems like A TON of iPhone battery used up in a short time.  GAMES don't even drain the phone that fast, do they?

Were you using the remote with a phone or just the phone and drone via wifi?

JakeS Posted at 2016-11-9 15:06
Were you using the remote with a phone or just the phone and drone via wifi?

He said his phone died, he then said he managed to bring it down to head height, so presumed he had RC.

I would assume that too but the remote has a RTH button which would bring the drone back as well as the pause button which cancels any current intelligent flight mode. If he was just using wifi and phone only then I would think the drone would treat it as a lost controller signal and activate the auto return to home function (unless it was disabled).

I'm curious to see more detailed information

Bad case of needing to RTFM.

EdM Posted at 2016-11-9 06:34
Bad case of needing to RTFM.

exactly right...

Was the phone in airplane mode? Other applications using location and operating in the background will add to your battery draining.

Did I not see dji Ken post that remote charges phone like P4 RC.

Here is a clip testing the remote cut feature  showing the RTH kicking in perfectly.

hallmark007 Posted at 2016-11-9 23:59
Did I not see dji Ken post that remote charges phone like P4 RC.

It will charge an Android BUT at an extremely slow rate so not enough to really do anything.

Sorry for your scare, experience will keep this situation from happening to you again.
As the others have posted, the quickest and easiest thing to do would have been to hit the RTH. After that you could have cancelled it and manually flew it back in case your RTH wasn't set properly of if you took off from under something.
There is always options, and that comes with memorizing all the aircraft's features, functions, and limitations. You will grasp all of that in time with experience.
Personally, If I was a new user to drones I would not start with a $1,000 aircraft. There will be (and already are) numerous crashes (hopefully without injury) that could have been easily avoided by knowing the manual and having experience.
Glab your Mavic did not have an incident.
And it is not good at all to remove the battery while the aircraft is powered on, just make sure you don't do it again.

EpicLPer Posted at 2016-11-9 21:07
Well, this thread proves that the decision to remove the "charge phone while connected to remote" fu ...

Wait, they removed that!? wtf.

DJI-Ken Posted at 2016-11-9 11:24
Sorry for your scare, experience will keep this situation from happening to you again.
As the others ...

Ken, can you verify if switching to Sport mode and then back would cancel the intelligent flight modes started on a phone? We know the phone is not necessary for flight, but what isn't clear from what I've read in the manual so far is what will happen to a function such as POI (which is initiated from the DGI Go app)  when the phone dies. Will the Intelligent flight mode cancel itself when it loses connection to the DGI Go app, or is it necessary to toggle the Sport switch to kill it?

fschilder Posted at 2016-11-9 20:41
Ken, can you verify if switching to Sport mode and then back would cancel the intelligent flight m ...

You just need to hit pause button to cancel intelligent flight modes, why would you need to switch between P and S to do the same thing.

fschilder Posted at 2016-11-10 04:41
Ken, can you verify if switching to Sport mode and then back would cancel the intelligent flight m ...

I'm not by an aircraft now, I'm guessing that since intelligent flight modes only work in P mode, if you switch to Sport mode then it gets cancelled.
And as the above post stated. just hit the pause if it didn't cancel. I will have to test to verify if unplugging the phone stops the POI.

So firstly I did maybe unwisely start the flight without maximum phone battery but your using your phone, you cant expect your phone to be constantly fully charged. It just caught me by surprise how quickly it could drain, it's a lesson learned that with full brightness and in cold weather (it wasnt extremely cold but the phone is outside of your pocket the whole time, im sure this contributes to the battery loss) your not going to get much time out of it. The phone also hadn't completely run out of battery either it probably turned off at about 15-20% as they do when they get cold. I have always used an ipad mini before, with my P3 and have been using it with the mavic, but this flight I had forgot the cable for it.

I am pretty sure I pressed the pause button (at least once, maybe more, so inadvertently paused the POI flight and then restarted it). Should it end the POI flight or just pause it?
When I got the mavic down to head height it seemed like this was just following the arc of the point of interest (I couldn't fly completely freely). Then it would not land (assuming this is because it was in POI mode). I also had started a RTH and then cancelled it (I wasn't completely comfortable with the home point set and it was right in front of me so felt it was easier to just land it manually.)
I am going to look at the logs to see what exactly I did and whether it had exited POI or not.
I did read the manual, plenty of times, I had enough time to and I have flown the P3 before so not a complete novice, but you can't prepare yourself for every possible eventuality.
I posted to give other people a heads up and warn them that the battery on your phone can deplete extremely quickly and it's probably not wise to be in one of these modes when the battery is getting low.
From now on I will always use my ipad mini.

fansd2e22cbc Posted at 2016-11-9 23:37
So firstly I did maybe unwisely start the flight without maximum phone battery but your using your p ...

You will be able to see all stick movements and buttons pushed in your flight records, might give you a clearer understanding of what happened..

hallmark007 Posted at 2016-11-10 07:48
You will be able to see all stick movements and buttons pushed in your flight records, might give  ...

Whats the easiest way to get these logs. The others are on my phone but the final flight in question is not on the phone (as it disconnected mid flight). I have found the flight logs on the actual aircraft, is it possible to move these to the app? It's a pretty big file so I don't really want to have to upload it to view.

fansd2e22cbc Posted at 2016-11-10 07:37
So firstly I did maybe unwisely start the flight without maximum phone battery but your using your p ...

The pause button only pause the POI and press it again it would continue the procedure.
Switch to Sports mode does help, as well as in other modes, I prefer doing this, quick and easy.
Don't really like to click on the screen if I can use a physical switch instead