The most insane DJI Phantom 2 fly away, crazy, out of control!

My nightmare flight with my DJI Phantom 2 and GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition. I realize now that the calibration i did right before takeoff must have been done nearby something very powerful that really messed up my system. I have never experienced such horrific behavior from my Phantom 2 ever before...! I am so happy no one were harmed by this crazy flying lunitic :-)
This happened in Stokmarknes, Vesterålen, in north of Norway.

[emacrz]

I had a similar experience with my Spark, once you have a flyaway you'll never have the same confidence, you become aware that your next flight might be the last.

[mbeta]

someone should investigate the oil slick coming from the gas station....lol

[Chances]

I had the exact same problem with my Phantom 2 about 2.5 years ago.
The problem was in calibrating the compass in an area that had strong magnetic fields.
I had the same rolling motion, 180 degree turns, etc, but mine crashed and smashed. Nobody or property was hurt/damaged thank God!
You were very lucky to get it back in one piece!!

[wakeboard]

Did you report the fuel leak you have on footage?

[AlainSainz]

That oil spill by the peer though! That's some serious issue right there!

[ebaystars]

i'm an engineer, compass calibration, check not near metal structures the waterway may have sheet pilings along the side, the ships are big metal objects, the port radar may have interfered with it, (yes I know the frequencies are very different but cheap drone receivers can be overloaded by many local signals from cell towers, point to point links etc)  cement has rebar matting in it, check all your connectors and I use water repellant silicon spray on some connector parts (not oil or wd40 ever as this will dissolve rubber).    Unplugging a multiway connector then plugging it back again can cure contact problems. On the edges of plug in boards it may not be gold plated (usually a cheaper metal, ) a pencil eraser will clean the gold looking flat connectors. ETC..etc....

[jofpv]

I know this is a old video now but Idk what all the dislikes for, stuff like this could happen and you handled it very well. Glad you got your drone back!

[smudgiebear]

omg dude, my heart would have been pounding and I'd have been screaming and swearing. so glad you managed to regain control and land it safely. beautiful scenery shame about the boat fuel/oil floating on the water.

[ShadowHerder]

I think your drone was trying to alert you to the massive fuel leak into water, call your officials, show them your footage! lol, good vid, made me anxious. felt your pain.

[smprfly]

If there was interference, I would put my money on the radar and navigation systems of the ship anchored near your location.

[ThreeMagicalBros]

One of the main pointers that pros say on all forums is stay away from piers and big ships, some have 5.8ghz signals which are used in your P2V which is what i have as well! Most of the guys upgrading the antennas say that even then the chances of mixed beams from strong high dbi antennas are likely. I kept reading "avoid ship masts" - now i understand why! Great luck getting it back a good friend of mine didnt get his back unfortunately. Cheers

[davidclark]

Jenny, the erratic behavior can be explained by what can be seen in the video - running from your launch point to the island across the 300m channel is a cable on the sea bed. There is another running north from where that cable goes ashore on the island and a third on the south side of the bridge. All of your flight was over these cables.

Normally one would think these to be data cables, but the island has to get power from the mainland grid, so these are most probably power cables (if you live there you could check this with your local authority). These would set up EMF fields that probably also interact with each other. Watch the video to observe where the worst behavior is and you will see that it starts between the two cables and then increases each time it passes over a cable.

Once these fields upset the GPS receiver and sensors and compass in the flight controller, it would behave in this erratic fashion in attempts to compute rational response to rapidly 'changing' and irrational data.

If it wasn't fields out there over the water, it could have been your control transmissions being distorted. You were standing only a few meters away from where the cable meets the shore, so your commands would at times have been partially or completely jammed as well. You only got some control back when it had passed over and north of the northern cable, but because your launch was very near the cable you had to fly back into the field to get home and so lose control again. These fields would not be constant, but change constantly with fluctuation power demand.

The cables can be seen at 1:54 at top right coming ashore and going to the small facility buildings with grey roof, and at 2:53, 3:59, 4:30, and 5:43-56.

A very scenic location, but probably not the best conditions for flying RC and FPV !! Failsafe and return-to-home would not work here, either.

[Marc]

My DJI Phantom 1.1.1 flew great. +200 flights no problem. If it got too far out of sight, I’d turn off the controller and it would come back.
Then 1 day I lost it, crashed in snow, no damage. Flew it several more times no problems, then it crashed real good.
Now I have a DJI Mini2, flies awesome. OcuSync2.0 is awesome!

[bpunlimited]

When I lose control, I just use Return to Home and it's fine.

[musicrealm]

I was feeling every moment, well done for getting it back safely 👏👏👏🙏😊👍

[Jcool]

Thanks, I had a flyaway with full tilt to right and full speed. Bye, bye P2!! The P2 crashed nearby neighborhood about 250 meters distance. We tried to find it without any luck. I was lucky and printed my name and number on top of the quad. The quad landed on top of the tree and crashed in front of the friendly house owner. He called me after 1, 5 hours search operation.  I lost gimbal and some probs. The P2 flies again but I'm going to sell it. I believe that the gimbal/gopro may caused the flyaway. After the crash I added better RF shielding between compass and controller. I enabled the manual mode and I have been training to fly! At least when the next flyaway happens I hope I can crash to nearby with manual mode :-) No more flyaways for me, thanks :-)

[lucashinch]

I can sympathize 100%. The anxiety was almost overwhelming as the phantom (clone) quadcopter flew off erratically, ultimately to the great beyond, never to be seen again, eventually landing somewhere between Gold Hill Mesa and Sand Creek, Colorado Springs.


Now I will try a tethered drone. Conversion is 90% complete. Provides almost unlimited flight time, (fly away proof), no batteries.

[zeroin]

LOL. That was intense bro. I was hanging on tight and on the edge of my seat. 😂

[hudster]

Holy crap! My heart was racing!!! Thank God you got that back...

[stevengrant]

I had a similar experience last week with my P3A. Wasn't thinking, but I was standing under high power electrical feeder lines. The EM from that must have been hell on my transmitter.