It’s been just over a week since I’ve sadly lost my DJI Air 2s on Botafogo Bay in Rio de Janeiro on New Years’ Eve. In the days following I’ve obsessively tried to gather all the evidence and put all the pieces together, with the help from DJI, to find out exactly what happened. Most importantly I want to learn how I can avoid this issue in future flights, which may also be useful for you if you’re also a drone pilot or considering being one. Let’s get started!

Year-End Report Recap

I discussed the incident in my year-end report, as well as the YT video but that was before I had more news. Here are the links to the reports:

2023 Year-End Review: Good, Bad and Ugly

So, what exactly happened – a timeline

Try to picture this, it’s New Years’ Eve in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil…one of the largest parties in the world and you have the possibility to launch the drone from a privileged location to capture the crowds and fireworks. Would you go for it despite the risks?

Most of you would answer, well it depends but by now you know me that I would never pass this opportunity because I know full well that this type of content would sell for many years to come! Here’s evidence from 2017/2018 when I shot from another special view point overlooking Copacabana Beach, which has earned me over $650 (counting some sales via REX Features). I imagine that with a great drone shot it may earn substantially more.

There are just a few issues though…

In all situations, piloting a drone takes planning to ensure smooth and safe flying especially if you’re going to do it within these parameters:

1. A large city with other drones and helicopters circling around;
2. New Years Eve which is obviously at night;
3. Fireworks!;
4. Within a blue authorization zone (60 metres ceiling); and
5. Weather conditions: PERFECT (at last one piece of good news).

To put it all in context, this would have been by far one of my most challenging flights ever attempted. Not counting flying out of windows as one that I have done (that’s just reckless and not recommended).

Before getting onto the flight itself I’ll address each of the above individually.

1. A large city with other drones and helicopters circling around

No doubt a worry but my hope was that I would be staying relatively at low altitude away from the major helicopter routes (these are considerably higher). As for other drones, as long as I maintained good visual line of sight I may be able to spot them and take evasive actions.

2. New Years Eve, which is obviously at night;

Wasn’t the first time I’ve flown at night and certainly won’t be the last, however, one needs to be humble and accept the risks. These include that sensors don’t work which means crashes are more likely as it’s more difficult to see/avoid obstacles. However, staying at a quite high altitude (55 meters) in the middle of the bay means that where I was flying I would be safe.

Being New Years Eve presented another set of challenges in the form of weaker signals from the busy airspace. More on this later.

3. Fireworks!

I would be flying far away from where the major fireworks would be taking off, however, that didn’t prevent everyday people from setting off their own fireworks. Just needed to be careful.

4. Within a blue authorization zone (60 metre ceiling)

Last and certainly not least of my worries was taking off within a “blue zone”, which is within 3km radius of an airport. This type of zone restricts my zone from flying above 60 metres with a geofencing technology. You may see all the zones in your respective city/country using this link.

I needed to follow a series of steps to unlock authorization prior to flying in this zone which included ticking many liability boxes.

My plan was to fly around 1km to exit this zone and go higher where there’s a ridge with a viewpoint towards Copacabana.

A few practice flights before New Years

Before the fateful last flight I flew a total of five times to get used to the surroundings, etc. I’ve flown before in such a zone in Portugal for a client shoot which was located next to a military landing strip but was my first time in Rio.

I had no issues in any of the flights and captured some cool panos and videos that have been accepted widely as stock.

Further planning the New Years Eve Shoot

I arrived at the terrace around 18:30 on NYE and did two flights to test everything as well as show off to the party-guests lol with no issues then charged all batteries to 100% to be ready for midnight.

Technical settings

I knew that if I wanted to successfully capture the Copacabana Fireworks I would have needed to get out of this 60metre zone and go up to 100-120 metres for the best views above the adjacent hill. So, I set my max altitude and RTH altitude to 100 meters just in case it needed to get back without crashing into the hill. This RTH altitude is quite standard for me as it’s high enough not to have issues with buildings, etc.

Last flight

So, it was around 21:30 and already fully dark. I was a bit bored of the party and already had a fully charged battery (with two others charging), so I thought why not take the drone up for a quick flight.

Calibrating the compass

I tried to take off and it wouldn’t let me for some reason saying that I needed to calibrate the compass. Strange, never had to do this but there’s a first time for everything.

This should have immediately set off some alarm bells. Later on I researched why this issue happens and here’s the answer from the DJI Forum.

When the app prompts that the compass needs to be calibrated, the drone’s compass has suffered from interference as the aircraft was turned on in a place where there is magnetic interference. Make sure to fly the aircraft in an open area free of interference.

Source

The flight itself

After calibrating which only took a minute or two I was off, in pitch darkness to explore the area. Even though the drone was only a few hundred metres away I started getting some messages about lack of signal, etc. These are annoying but with a full charge of battery I have more than enough tolerance to avoid disaster.

Hyperlapse

I took a few top-down shots of boats with lights on for book covers and then proceeded to do a hyperlapse of Botafogo Bay with Christ the Redeemer Statue in the background as it’s one of the shots I had not done there yet. Being night and all I could slow down the shutter speed to achieve cool smooth effects of the cars and clouds.

The hyperlapse was that straight line before turning back. It was I recall 200 images with one second interval and moving forward at 1.5km/h. Took about 10 minutes and would have been quite cool!

End of hyperlapse

At the end of the hyperlapse I was at the furthest distance of 906metres and with all the issues related to weak signal it was more than time to return home, even though I had some 60% battery. I turned the drone around and headed back manually hoping that the signal woudl improve as it got closer.

Loss of signal

Almost halfway to returning home at a distance of 572 metres my screen went blank, to my surprise, and lost full control of the drone. Now, losing signal does happen from time to time and always comes back after 5-10 seconds (in rare occasions slightly longer), so with plenty of battery I was not worried in the slightest.

I also know that the automatic Return to Home (RTH) features kicks in after 6 seconds of no signal and it would bring my baby home. Whenever this happens I get the signal back and cancel the RTH and fly back manually (or to another place).

Standing there for a good 30 seconds and not seeing my drone return or getting signal back I began to become worried. I also could not spot my drone anymore with the flashing lights which was super strange.

After about 3 minutes I pretty much knew it was game over and it was gone, but how??!!

Recovery mode

I clicked on the “Find My Drone” feature to see its last occasions and it was a 16 second video.

I tried to check the logs for anything usual, such as batteries but nothing too unusual. Also began to have strange thoughts that maybe it was brought down by civil authorities.

Getting in touch with DJI’s helpdesk

I was mourning my loss for a few days but still wanted to get to the bottom of this incident. I contacted DJI’s “Fly Away” Department and opened up a case on new years day. They responded after a day and gave me the verdict:

For your case CAS-XXXXX, we have finished the analysis, and the result is as follows:

1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode. The home point: -22.9464726, -43.1632377 was in the altitude limited zone(60meters) but the pilot set a 100m RTH altitude;
2. Flight Time T=11:41, Relative Height H=51.8m, Distance to Home Point D=572.3m, the flight record ended when the aircraft was flying forward when aircraft was out of the altitude limited zone;
3. After the flight record ended, Failsafe RTH would be triggered, however, the aircraft was unable to return home due to the altitude limit(60m);
4. The last recorded point: 44.0489086, 10.3418146.

According to the analysis, the incident was caused by the improper parameter setting. Please pay attention to the warning and flight environment during the flight.

Explaining the above in layman’s’ terms

I will try to explain this more in layman’s terms. Even though I was in a 60metre altitude-controlled zone, I had set the the Return to Home fail-safe at 100metres. As mentioned, my goal was to leave the 60m zone to try to go a bit higher to get the view towards Copacabana and set the RTH at the same height as my maximum height (100 metres).

So the drone halted when signal was lost and tried continuously to climb with no success. After a few failed attempts it must have auto-landed…on the water below.

Failsafe RTH

I pressed DJI on this issue arguing that the software shouldn’t have allowed me a higher RTH altitude and they threw the book at me absolving them of all responsibility by quoting the manual.

Source

Overconfidence? Probably.

This oversight of not setting my RTH lower than the max altitude cost me my drone and I only have myself to blame for that. Nevertheless, I advised DJI to facilitate this sort of “oversight” issue in the future so others don’t have suffer the same circumstances even if 99% of people don’t ever fly in “blue zones”.

Does this oversight make me a bad drone pilot? I don’t think so, however, the lesson here is that flying a drone carries a certain amount of risk. Every one of those 550 times that I launched there was a risk, often small but sometimes higher. I mentioned earlier the factors that were increasing my risk which I was fully aware and went ahead regardless.

I suppose that crashing/losing a drone comes with the job and anybody that has flown enough will eventually have an incident (hopefully nobody gets hurt). Plenty of these last tragic seconds have been uploaded on YouTube!

This incident also highlights how it’s important to consistently do pre-flight, mid-flight and post-flights checks to avoid problems. More specifically pre-flight to check the settings and mid-flight to always be aware of the notification pop-ups even if they seem trivial.

What’s next for my flying career?

Let’s turn a chapter, learn from the mistakes and move on.

Soon, I’ll be upgrading to an DJI Air 3 which shoots also with a 70mm equivalent lens as well as better signal which was something that I was generally not so happy about with my 2s. Wohooo!

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About Alex

I’m an eccentric guy, currently based in Lisbon, Portugal (currently in Rio), on a quest to visit all corners of the world and capture stock images & footage. I’ve devoted eight years to making it as a travel photographer / videographer and freelance writer. I hope to inspire others by showing an unique insight into a fascinating business model.

Most recently I’ve gone all in on submitting book cover images to Arcangel Images. Oh and I was flying my DJI Mavic 2s drone regularly until it crashed in Botafogo Bay so I’m eyeing a replacement soon!.

I’m proud to have written a book about my adventures which includes tips on making it as a stock travel photographer – Brutally Honest Guide to Microstock Photography