Recently I was out flying my Mavic Air 2s on a misty morning. Once it was the air, I realized how difficult it would be to re-land the drone at the homepoint due to poor visibility caused by the thick mist and numerous trees around the homepoint. Instead, I navigated the drone to a different location about a half-mile away. As the battery got low, the drone went into auto-return mode and began to return to the homepoint. I overroad this and instead landed the drone at the remote location by holding down the LAND button on the app, verifying the landing visually as well.
I immediately got into my car and drove to the landing site, a cleared hilltop with and asphalt drive leading to a viewpoint. There was no sign of anyone when I arrived 4-5 minutes after landing -- but neither was there any sign of my drone! I used the "Find My Drone" feature in the DJI app but the landing point was exactly where it should have been. After searching the nearby woods and speaking to area residents I still have not turned up the drone. My question is, with it's battery low, could the imperative of the auto-return feature have caused the drone to relaunch and try return to the homepoint a second time, even after landing? Is that even possible?
I should add that both locations, the homepoint and the landing point, were on the same rural private property making theft of the drone unlikely.
This raises another question: if a drone returned automatically to its homepoint and found that it couldn't make a vertical landing due to trees what would it do? Hover until its battery died and then crash?
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