So I just got the drone a week back and lost it today in the snow. I was flying and it lost signal at 800m away. My phone then died and I have been unable to find it. Am I missing some way to find it? I have used the flight logs coordinates which only led me to as far as the drone was when i lost signal. Is there no way of retrieving the data of where it went down??

link to flight log

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/29WRZ24DXKQHXSO4JHDV/  

First, did you have your name and phone number on it somewhere as recommended in case you loose it?  You state snow - how cold was it?  DJI recommends not to fly below -10C.  Why did you fly so high?  Just like the wind, it gets colder the higher you go.  A few cell warnings suggest your battery was getting cold.  Was your phone fully charged?  Why did it die?  Always fly your DJI with fully charged everything.  Even with a dead phone, you should have had control of the drone with the remote unit.  Did you try an RTH?  With your drone so high and still 70% battery, it could have flown a long ways from the end point on your track.  Hopefully someone will find it and you'll hear about it.  Otherwise, the temperature, the flight height and unknown direction of travel makes for a huge area where it could have gone.  Sorry you lost your drone, but you were pushing fate in a couple of regards.

First, did you have your name and phone number on it somewhere as recommended in case you loose it?  You state snow - how cold was it?  DJI recommends not to fly below -10C.  Why did you fly so high?  Just like the wind, it gets colder the higher you go.  A few cell warnings suggest your battery was getting cold.  Was your phone fully charged?  Why did it die?  Always fly your DJI with fully charged everything.  Even with a dead phone, you should have had control of the drone with the remote unit.  Did you try an RTH?  With your drone so high and still 70% battery, it could have flown a long ways from the end point on your track.  Hopefully someone will find it and you'll hear about it.  Otherwise, the temperature, the flight height and unknown direction of travel makes for a huge area where it could have gone.  Sorry you lost your drone, but you were pushing fate in a couple of regards.

Sorry about your loss, But it seems that you flew your bird way to high in way to cold of a day. Sorry man, good luck finding your bird. I imagine the battery probably freezing up at that high of an altitude.... Good luck.

flyhigh69 Posted at 2018-3-18 20:25
Sorry about your loss, But it seems that you flew your bird way to high in way to cold of a day. Sorry man, good luck finding your bird. I imagine the battery probably freezing up at that high of an altitude.... Good luck.

Not very likely, once the aircraft is in the air, the power consumption of the motors would keep the battery warm. However, I digresss, aircraft appears to have been in the process of returning home from quite early in the flight, but it does not appear to know where home is.

It was not much less than -1º, the killer here is the wind speed at around  22mph with gusts between 30 and 40mph from the east and this is at 10m height not the 224m. at that height the temp will be less, so his -1ºC becomes -2ºC, no issues there really unless you factor in snow and or high humidity when it snowed, this will lead to prop icing, still, this wasnt the killer here, it was deffo the wind.

Setting off with the wind behind you is bad, at 224m and gale force at times is very bad, you can clearly see  how bad this is by the direction it was going during RTH, deffo was not going home, it tries but its being blown backwards, with the windspeed at lets say 28mph (rough average to include gusts) minus the RTH speed (not sure what it is on your craft) 60% battery left before auto land, we know it managed to travel backwards of around 300ft and that took around 3 minutes and about 20% battery used up, i reckon ya search area should be the park and woods to the west, prob should mention that it was possibly seen and taken home if te kids were out playing, hit ya local FB groups and ask..

Bashy Posted at 2018-3-18 21:46
It was not much less than -1º, the killer here is the wind speed at around  22mph with gusts between 30 and 40mph from the east and this is at 10m height not the 224m. at that height the temp will be less, so his -1ºC becomes -2ºC, no issues there really unless you factor in snow and or high humidity when it snowed, this will lead to prop icing, still, this wasnt the killer here, it was deffo the wind.

Setting off with the wind behind you is bad, at 224m and gale force at times is very bad, you can clearly see  how bad this is by the direction it was going during RTH, deffo was not going home, it tries but its being blown backwards, with the windspeed at lets say 28mph (rough average to include gusts) minus the RTH speed (not sure what it is on your craft) 60% battery left before auto land, we know it managed to travel backwards of around 300ft and that took around 3 minutes and about 20% battery used up, i reckon ya search area should be the park and woods to the west, prob should mention that it was possibly seen and taken home if te kids were out playing, hit ya local FB groups and ask..

Hi, Thanks for your help. I checked the local parks and found nothing. I noticed though that in the flight log, a thing called "RTH Heading Alignment" happened mid way through the flight. I had never heard of this so I thought maybe the gps had rerouted to a new RTH point, which surprisingly It had. I got the drone back as it had landed on the Bank Of Ireland building and it was handed back to the local garda station. I now have my details on it and will never fly without phone battery again, very lucky indeed.

Haha, it followed the money!

Not trying to sound sarcastic but you might want to study the user manual before you fly again.
Never fly without a good gps lock and home position set. Rule of thumb for most pilots.
Always make sure all batteries have enough charge to easily cover your flight time for your drone batteries these should always be fully charged prior to flight
Im glad you got your drone back lesson learned here i think.

Hellsgate Posted at 2018-3-20 08:43
Not trying to sound sarcastic but you might want to study the user manual before you fly again.
Never fly without a good gps lock and home position set. Rule of thumb for most pilots.
Always make sure all batteries have enough charge to easily cover your flight time for your drone batteries these should always be fully charged prior to flight

I'm not sure you read the previous post. Basically, The gps home point changed during a signal loss. other than that, the home position had been locked in as it normally does.  just a freak occurance it seems.  It might be helpful for anyone who has an issue like this.

Ahh sorry my bad missed that bit

Hellsgate Posted at 2018-3-20 09:09
Ahh sorry my bad missed that bit

And put your name and/or email on it in case you loose it again.  For one reason or another, it can happen to any of us.  Glad you got it back.  You're one of the lucky ones.

You've been given a lot of confused answers and it's probably best to ignore most of them except post #6..
Your Phantom had a perfectly good GPS position and homepoint which did not change during the flight.
The reason for the loss is quite simple.
You flew high in strong gusty winds.
The wind up high was much stronger than on the ground.
When your Phantom initiated RTH and tried to fly home 740 feet up, the wind was too strong and the Phantom was slowly blown further and further away at a speed of 2-4 metres per second.

As I remind people every week, Never fly away downwind in strong winds.
Fly away upwind.  It will be slower, but the flight home will be easy.
Keep an eye on wind strength and how it affects your flight speed.
If you are having difficulty up high battling headwinds, get the Phantom down where the wind is less.

Eventually your Phantom will have reached Critical Low Battery condition and autolanded.
But by the time this happened, the Phantom could have drifted another mile ot more.

alan dunne Posted at 2018-3-20 09:05
I'm not sure you read the previous post. Basically, The gps home point changed during a signal loss. other than that, the home position had been locked in as it normally does.  just a freak occurance it seems.  It might be helpful for anyone who has an issue like this.

The gps home point changed during a signal loss
I'd be interested to see how you worked that out.
The homepoint at launch time and at the end of the flight data was recorded as:

53.26014

-6.14094

alan dunne Posted at 2018-3-20 06:19
Hi, Thanks for your help. I checked the local parks and found nothing. I noticed though that in the flight log, a thing called "RTH Heading Alignment" happened mid way through the flight. I had never heard of this so I thought maybe the gps had rerouted to a new RTH point, which surprisingly It had. I got the drone back as it had landed on the Bank Of Ireland building and it was handed back to the local garda station. I now have my details on it and will never fly without phone battery again, very lucky indeed.

will never fly without phone battery again, very lucky indeed
The phone battery wasn't the problem.
You can fly perfectly well and initiate RTH using the controller without any phone.
And when you lose signal because your Phantom is flown or blown out of range, RTH will initiate automatically as it did here.
The problem was entirely because due to you flying high downwind.
You wouldn't dive into a fast flowing river and expect to be able to swim back against the current.
That's what you did with your Phantom.

Labroides Posted at 2018-3-20 13:46
The gps home point changed during a signal loss
I'd be interested to see how you worked that out.
The homepoint at launch time and at the end of the flight data was recorded as:

Thanks for all the feedback, lots of helpful and not so helpful opinions everyone. I can see how the strong winds didn't help. The reason I figured that it changed RTH was when the message on the flight log read "RTH Heading Alignment". This happened at the exact place the drone was later found. That's why I think this. I'm sure it could also be a coincidence, the strong winds kept it from getting all the way home, and it managed to get to where it landed just as auto land took it down when the battery died. that's why there's a forum I guess,  to see if anyone had this experience before and could advise, not to be just reminded of basic flying "Rules"

Glad ya found it, sorry i was way off the mark, the winds must have dropped considerably. The guys will correct me if im wrong, when you lost signal on your way out, it initiated RTH, then waits 3 seconds in case signal is restored, if its not, RTH will then begin Heading Alignment to go back to the home point, hence the  (RTH Heading Alignment) seen in the log, (next sentence is only long shot) had you have just waited, it would have reconnected once it got closer to you and then the landing point would have recorded on the map, a tip though, if you go looking, never turn off the RC and phone, i think thats what i remember, but cannot remember why lol someone will help there.....

Glad to hear that you found the drone afterwards, Alan. Is everything all good with the drone? Please make an overall check of it. If needed, you can send the drone in for help. http://www.dji.com/support