Mavic Pro LOST when trying to manually RTH

PIX4Dcapture PIX4Dcapture Questions/Troubleshooting
1

I lost my Mavic Pro drone this afternoon. I was flying a double grid mission after updating Pix4DCapture, and changing battery settings in DJI Go4. I turned off Smart RTH  set low battery warning at 15%. I had been having problems previously where it would RTH at 20% and land, but I could not resume to finish a mission if it took longer than 1 battery.

Today I learned the hard way. I tried to take control at about 21% and manually fly back, but the screen lag was so bad I couldn’t orient myself. I tried switching to P mode to force it to give me control, which at some point it did, but I was unable to get it to RTH. Tried pressing RTH on the remote controller, tried opening the DJI Go4 app after force quitting Pix4DCapture, but battery was running out, and soon it disconnected. I assume it tried to land, it showed 4% or so when I lost connection. I cannot find the coordinates to search for the drone, there is nothing in DJI Go4. I did find a GPS coordinate in Pix4DCapture on the project screen, but I think that is where the last survey photo was taken, then I tried to take control and lost it. I looked that coordinate up on Google Earth and went to the location, but it was not there. This is a neighborhood area, there are trees and buildings, so no idea where it has gone. I am at a total loss for what to do now. There goes a $1300 investment.

2

Hi Gary,

We are very sorry to hear about this experience.

How did you take over manual control? Did you tap Abort in the Map view of Pix4Dcapture? We do not recommend to check the position of the drone in the app but we rather suggest to always keep visual contact with the drone. Indeed, the interface can be laggy especially if the drone is far away so it will not represent the actual location.

When you press the RTH button or if fail-safe is triggered (15% threshold is your case), if the drone does not have enough battery to come back to the home point, it lands vertically where it is currently flying.

Unfortunately when the connection is lost, the position of the drone is no longer recorded. However, perhaps you could try to contact DJI support as they might help you to locate the drone where it landed.

Hope it helps.