Drone Flew Away !!! DJI Mavic 2 drone fly away using Litchi Waypoint Mission

Watch before using Litchi with your DJI drone!!

My DJI Mavic 2 Zoom flew away using Litchi Waypoint Mission. Litchi causes drone crash while doing a waypoint mission.

[joeglennaz]

I started using Litchi in 2015 and loved it. I've never had an issue. I was using a Phantom 3 Pro in those days. I have had it disconnect but it flew the rest of the mission and came home and landed. If you use it again make sure to buy insurance on your flight or better yet you can insure your drone full time through state farm for like $40.00 a year! So if it flies away, never comes home etc. you are covered!

[riverbankfisher]

Since you have sufficient experience with Litchi, I suspect that a bird of prey might have brought the drone down. Over many Litchi flights, I've had three hawks caught on video making very close passes at my Phantom 3 Standard, but I think the sheer size of that antique drone, and the extremely bright strobe light on the rear of the craft, were enough to deter an actual, full-on hawk attack. That'll be five dollars for the free expert opinion sir, and make that cash only. Thank you for your support.

[jeffgritchen]

You clearly flew it out of VLOS and were in FUL airspace.

[flagdrones]

Sorry to hear what happened, hopefully the drone landed somewhere safely! I fly commercially and use Waypoints 2.0 frequently and would strongly recommend, if your flying a waypoint rout in the future, make the default is set to “hover” and not “finish route” or “RTH” if signal is lost which would have avoided what you experienced. Since you must always have the drone in Visual Line of Sight you can always retake manual control and safely land in a scenario like this.

[DangerousDaveKincaid]

Always us Google Earth mission simulator to make sure your flight path is high enough to clear things. But then you probably did that...

[pharmon]

Be aware that if you have actions enabled ( e.g., to stop and “take photo”), the extra time taken for stopping, shooting the photo, etc.. is NOT factored into the estimated flight time. If you have a lot of waypoints and an action specified at each one, this can significantly increase mission time, in some cases well beyond the estimated flight time. Also, if different speeds are set for different legs of the mission and the controller loses contact, the craft will continue the mission at the speed it was traveling when it lost contact.

[thetruth]

I temporarily lost my Mavic air a few weeks ago. I was flying from the parking lot outside of antelope Island in Utah and was flying down the road that goes out to the island. About a mile out, my drone makes a weird maneuver almost as if it was hit by something and then it started descending. The controls weren’t working and it landed somewhere off the side of the road. I immediately went driving down the road to see if I could find it but had no luck as it was getting kind of dark. The next day I went back again and walked up and down the road for about a mile and a half and still didn’t find it. Finally realized on the third day that I had been using find my drone the wrong way and once I got it connected it showed me exactly where the drone was and I was able to go exactly where it was and pick it up.

[overratedsrtchallenger]

This is why its important to always have line of sight

[AdrianMateoDrones]

Wow I am sorry you had this bad experience Adams. I personally have never lost a drone, but I did have a BIG scared once, but the RTH kicked in automatically after my drone lost connection from my remote control. What happened is that my iPad got really hot and it overheated so it locks itself to prevent further damages. I am really sorry that happened to. Hey lesson learned.
Please keep those good videos coming. Thanks for all you do and please keep flying.

[darkodimitrijevic]

There is a nicer solution for that. It it a tiny GPS tracker, a little more bigger than a jacket button. And if you stick it on your drone it could provide you with extra security and show you where the drone actually is. There are some of them which can activate beep audio signal with a push of a button to locate it from the phone app (this tricks are also using samsung, apple etc for losted phone). So it will show in google maps drone location and it will activate audio beep. But consider before flying waypoints, that you should first fly the same route first with your own controls. You should know position of every object higher - in the air. Maybe there is a new contraction crane over there, tree with many leafs, extra electrical wires for something extra, and so on. And do NOT forget. Some of "3th-party-apps" could be easily hacked. So, that means that someone could steel your drone. Bare in mind that you need guaranteed, original, proofed hardware and software, plus GPS mini tracker glued, or sticked on the drone batt. or so. Plus, consider buying full insurance for your drone. It is not so expensive, but if something happens (and pro`s said - it will) you will get a new drone. And, as the most drone pilots, I am also very sorry for your drone

[XRPgeneration]

I always have a note in my drones and RC planes, with all my contact info. Most people have no clue and wouldn't know what to do with a drone (without anything else) anyway. The chance they call you to tell you they found your drone is high.

[StonyRC]

I'm AMAZED at the sheer naivety of anyone expecting a simple consumer drone to work fully autonomously when out of range of the controller. Sorry to hear that you lost such an expensive device but PLEASE don't be fooled by manufacturers or software writers product claims. If you can't see it, you can't control it - and NO consumer device (i.e. non-military) is going to dodge that. It's how these devices are DESIGNED to work.

[tonay]

You've send the MA2 to a 9 km route and expecting it to return ?High optimistic expectation.

[CarlosTamares]

I'm using LITCHI for 3 years doing missions SO LONG and NEVER a problem. I'm so sorry man...

[thegooserider]

Calling DJI to tell them your drone flew away on a third party app. I bet they were loving their lives. You should have closed the app off completely and restarted DJI GO 4.

[michaelderwin]

I flew a Mavic Air one time with Litchi where the battery gave me a certain level at the beginning of the flight but then midpoint, the battery dropped to zero and the drone did an emergency landing in someone's back yard. I figured out whose yard it must be in, then did a bunch of googling to find the person's phone number and I got my drone back. So maybe it was an unfortunate battery issue in your case.

I've also flown with waypoints and I accidentally set the waypoints to absolute altitude instead of above ground altitude. About half-way thru the flight, I lost signal as expected. But then I had a hunch something was wrong - I figured out my altitude issue - so I got in the car like you did and drove the flight path of the drone until I got my signal back and then issued a return to home. It was really interesting to watch the footage of the drone as it was trying to fly level up a slowly ascending hill with boulders and all of the movements it made to keep going forward without crashing into the hillside....really impressive obstacle avoidance!


If you underestimated the heights of trees in the neighborhood, it could have crashed into a tree.

Or maybe someone took a shotgun to it.

I've never had my drone just fly away using litchi, and I frequently fly out of signal range.

[digitaldazzle]

Damn... I just bought the Litchi app tonight. Now I'm freaked out! Lol

[whitham]

So sorry to hear and watch this video. I feel the pain but in my case i lost the RC to my M2Z. I am glad your back up and flying. Stay healthy and safe.

[chillimocha]

Out of curiosity did you have smart RTH setup in Litchi settings? I have only just started using Litchi but have watched a couple of tutorial videos. From what I can see if you have smart RTH setup then if the controller loses communication with the drone then it should automatically return to home.

[scn]

i use litchi and my drone freeze after finish the mission... i cannot move it to anyway...


so i make new "mission" and move the drone to the field... and press Land....


is it the default litchi programm...? freeze after finish the mission and only can Land....?