Lost complete control of the drone, unresponsive app, rc and aircraft, on water!!!

[MiguelArenillas]

Hello everybody, just had the most horrible experience with my drone, got invited to a boat ride so I brought my phantom 4, once in the water (in a legal flying zone) took off and flew around, I did an intelligent flying mode (point of interest), then after exiting it, flew for 2 more minutes when suddenly a message appear on my phone, "returning home" weird but didn't panic since there was the option to cancel it, but cancelling option didn't work, it kept showing me this message that said: (warning: command time out), tried to stop the RTH and the landing several times, and all the time was impossible, the drone went 50m up and like 40 m away to land, on water!!!! Control was completely unresponsive, also the app, was on a boat 40m away watching my drone going down to land on the water, thankfully stop descending around 4 meters above the water, we went fast in that direction, I still had 8 minutes of battery, so we try to positioning the boat below the drone, still couldn't reach it, so thankfully I had a stick with a hook that I used to pull the drone down, then hold it by the landing gear, still unresponsive while doing this, tried to turn it off with the remote control and nothing, by pressing the button in the actual drone, nothing work, had to hold it with both hands above my head while the drone was trying to go up and motors were going full power, after 3 minutes drone stop, battery was dead and I was sick, still feel nervous.

I have last update, did every single calibrations before flying

Did anybody heard something like this before?
What you recommend me to do?

Thank you

 

[Neon Euc]

Wow so sorry to hear that. Must be a scary experience. Were you using DJI GO?

 

[Jayfdee]

Well sounds like it was heading to the recorded home point, you had moved the boat after the home point was set.Sorry if I am saying the obvious, but the home point is where you launched, not where you are.
You can easily cancel RTH by toggling the sport/atti switch. Sounds like you did not cancel RTH on the app fast enough.
Anyway you did not lose your Quad.

 

[MiguelArenillas]

Well sounds like it was heading to the recorded home point, you had moved the boat after the home point was set.Sorry if I am saying the obvious, but the home point is where you launched, not where you are.
You can easily cancel RTH by toggling the sport/atti switch. Sounds like you did not cancel RTH on the app fast enough.
Anyway you did not lose your Quad.

Yes it was RTH to the spot where I took off and also yes we moved with the boat, but, I tried to cancel within the first 2 seconds that the RTH start, also once I catch it, i tried to turn it off by any way, even the emergency turn off, nothing worked, also toggled the switch as you mention and nothing, if I didn't had a pole with a hook that allowed me to grab it, the drone would be under water right now

 

[MiguelArenillas]

Wow so sorry to hear that. Must be a scary experience. Were you using DJI GO?

Yes I was using dji go app on an iPhone 6s plus

 

[Jayfdee]

Yes it was RTH to the spot where I took off and also yes we moved with the boat, but, I tried to cancel within the first 2 seconds that the RTH start, also once I catch it, i tried to turn it off by any way, even the emergency turn off, nothing worked, also toggled the switch as you mention and nothing, if I didn't had a pole with a hook that allowed me to grab it, the drone would be under water right now

Did you hold down left stick for 2 secs whilst holding Quad steady, this is the normal method for hand catching, or pole catching, even.

 

[tonioP4]

I had a very similar experience the other day. I was flying at the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain near Mandeville, LA, and everything was going well when I noticed my distance was being restricted to 48 meters and the altitude restricted as well. At some point the home point reset overt the water which somehow was too far to get back to me. It was on the other side of a channel that led to a river. After a few attempts to get it back I decided to land it on the beach near the other side where some kids were playing and watching it. They were very curious but surprisingly, they kept an eye out on it for me. I got in my car and attempted to find a way to get to the other side of the river but the nearest bridge was miles away and it was some kind of park that I wouldn't have been able to drive to. So went back and tried to ask the kids how to get over there and decided first to give it another shot. The drone was still on and connected to the RC so I started the propellers, lifted up and flew it directly back to me. Of course I landed it immediately to reset the home point.

Like you I thought I would lose it in the water and then I figured one of the children would take it before I could get to it. Talk about a sense of relief when I got it back. But wth was that?

 

[Southern Style]

Just throwing this out there, because I was not there, but were you moving when you were trying to turn it off? When I hand catch my P4, I hold it still (VERY STILL) as any movement will convince the P4 that it has not grounded itself yet. If I move slightly, the P4 won't shut off until another 3 seconds of being very still... The water motion may have been messing with the P4.. If you were holding it, and moving, and the P4 was trying to get back up to altitude, it might not have let it shut off.

Just thinking out loud, trying to help find to cause of this with you..

 

[MiguelArenillas]

Just throwing this out there, because I was not there, but were you moving when you were trying to turn it off? When I hand catch my P4, I hold it still (VERY STILL) as any movement will convince the P4 that it has not grounded itself yet. If I move slightly, the P4 won't shut off until another 3 seconds of being very still... The water motion may have been messing with the P4.. If you were holding it, and moving, and the P4 was trying to get back up to altitude, it might not have let it shut off.

Just thinking out loud, trying to help find to cause of this with you..

Thanks for your comment and that would make a lot of sense, but then, when I had it on my hands, and after trying just holding left stick down without succes, why I couldn't shut it off using the emergency shut off command, (left stick down and to the center while pressing RTH buttom) that suppose to shut it off no matter what, but didn't work.

 

[MiguelArenillas]

Did you hold down left stick for 2 secs whilst holding Quad steady, this is the normal method for hand catching, or pole catching, even.

yes I did that, but as somebody mention before, maybe the boat movement didnt let me shut it off, but then, why the emergency shut off command didn't work neither?

 

[MiguelArenillas]

This is my fly log, maybe helps to find out what happened

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

 

[Southern Style]

Now, I agree... that emergency shut off should have done it.. no answers for that!!

 

[alokbhargava]

The main issue was signal lost and due to this you could not cancel RTH or perform any operation.

Any reason for losing signal?

 

[MiguelArenillas]

The main issue was signal lost and due to this you could not cancel RTH or perform any operation.

Any reason for losing signal?

I don't know why, drone was around 40m from me when that happened, couple people told me could be the gps and other devices from the boat that interfere, but I don't know exactly why

 

[Meta4]

This is my fly log, maybe helps to find out what happened
Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

It might be able to work out what happened if we can see real flight data rather than Airdata's brief summary.
Go to https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone here might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

 

[Rob Levine]

It might be able to work out what happened if we can see real flight data rather than Airdata's brief summary.
Go to https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.
Come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone here might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

any chance you'd wandered afoul of the geofence?