If you lose (or crash) you drone, there are few things you can do to recover it, including
- Don’t turn off your controller
- Use the Return to home feature (if you have one)
- Take a screen shot before you lose signal for a point of reference
- Use the course map and telemetry information on your controller app
- When you know you are close to the drone, look and listen closely
- Contact the FAA
I’ve Lost a Drone Before and it is Terrifying
I remember one time a few years ago, my brother in law was flying his Mavic. He lived way out in the country and we were flying the drone around the hills near his house. All of the sudden, the video signal dropped out and there was no way to control the drone. We thought it was gone for good. It turns out that we had dipped too low near one of the hills and lost all signal at once. Naturally, the drone immediately dropped out of sight. We were able to follow the steps I outline here and recovered his drone in less than 30 minutes.
I know it probably feels like all hope is lost, but most likely, you can easily and quickly recover your drone. Just know that time is of the essence! If you are currently looking to recover your drone (or just preparing for the unlikely loss of one) keep reading! These tips helped me recover a drone without any damage.
Don’t Turn off the Controller
Okay, first thing is first, if you lose your drone, DO NOT turn off your controller. The good news here is that you probably have some time before the drone or controller battery runs out. Because that is probably the case, the controller will continue to try and reconnect to the drone. This is great news. If you have a general idea about the location of your drone, start walking immediately in that direction and keep an eye tuned to your controller app. As it stands, you might only have a little bit of information about where the drone is but if your controller can reconnect with your drone, you may be in business because it will begin to feed you updated location information. Then its just a matter of walking to the right spot and honing in on the drone, which apparently is in good enough condition to send you a signal.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the story I mentioned above is probably an outlier. Usually, you don’t lose all signal at once. If you’ve been flying drones for any amount of time, you will be able to think back to a recent time that your drone app told you that you lost video signal. The first time this happens, it comes as kind of a shock and you may have panicked a little. I know I did.
But don’t worry, your drone isn’t going to just drop out of the sky. In fact, loss of video typically comes long before you lose the ability to control your drone. If you lose video signal, you should then focus your attention on the telemetry of your drone. Play around with the sticks until you start seeing the distance from your controller number going down. This should be enough to bring your video feed back. This feels a little bit like a pilot flying his airplane using just the instruments (which is why some pilots are instrument rated).
Use the Return to Home Feature
Another option is to use the return to home feature. This feature should automatically kick in if your DJI drone loses signal for at least 3 seconds when you are using normal remote control transmission. If you are using a wifi signal to control your drone, you will not have nearly the range on your drone and the automatic return to home does not kick in until there is a loss of signal for at least 20 seconds. The automatic return to home will also attempt to engage on a DJI drone if the battery level will affect the drone’s ability to return to you. If the battery reaches the level you have set as “critical,” the drone will begin to land itself and you can’t stop this from happening. All the more reason to make sure your drone is close as hand when it hits that “critical” level.
In the event that the auto return to home does not engage, DJI drones also have a button built in to the controller so that you can just tap without having to toggle through any menus, etc. This is why it is so important to wait until you have a GPS lock on your drone before you start flying. Allowing your drone to properly acquire GPS signal before taking off will record the “home point” for the drone. If you’re using a DJI drone, make sure you hear the app say “home point recorded.” Once you hear this, you know that the drone’s current position has been recorded as the home point.
Lastly, make sure that you’ve set the return to home altitude so that your drone doesn’t return at a low altitude and just run into a bunch of trees on the way home. While I recognize that some newer DJI drones have the ability to maneuver around obstacles, do you really want to take a chance that the obstacle avoidance doesn’t work or it accidentally clips a small branch that it didn’t detect? Do yourself a favor and set the return altitude to above the tree line. This way it will ascend to the return to home altitude before it starts heading home.
Take Pictures Before You Lose Signal
I know that your initial reaction to losing signal on your drone may be panic. But if you have the presence of mind to take a screen shot or two before you lose video feed, these pictures can provide you with great evidence of where the drone is located. If you end up with some kind of worst case scenario, at least you can refer back to the screen shots you took of the drone controller app before you lost signal. A picture of the horizon and another pointed straight down is ideal, but really, any pictures that you have will be helpful. Just remember that these need to be screen shots. While you may be caching drone images on your controller during flight, if you are having a loss of signal issue, you don’t want to rely on that very signal to transmit the images you are taking back to your controller. Instead, a screen shot should be saved directly on your smart device.
Use the Course Map, Telemetry and Find My Drone Feature
This is another reason to NOT TURN OFF YOUR CONTROLLER. Sorry, but if there’s one takeaway here, it is to leave your controller on. Another beautiful feature of using a drone controller with an app is that (at least on DJI drones) it will show you the course of the drone throughout the flight. Just maximize the flight map and you will see the location line of the drone throughout the entire flight. This should help guide you in the right direction of the drone. Hopefully at some point, your drone picks up the controller signal and is able to help you hone in on its location but this could take some time since your likely have terrain or other obstacles between you and the drone. The range for connection is way shorter than when you are flying the drone because you don’t have a direct line of sight between the controller and the drone.
RELATED: How to Cache Maps in the DJI Go App
Lastly here, I will say that the DJI Go app does record the flight log of the drone on the main page of the app. But I would be super hesitant to go back to the main screen on the drone app because getting back into the flight screen requires you to “enter device” and well, you probably don’t have signal to get back into connection with the drone or it wouldn’t be lost. All of that to say, the flight log on the main screen, if it was synced before the loss of signal, will show you the last known GPS coordinates of the drone. Alternatively, there is a “Find My Drone” feature in the DJI Go app that will show you the last recorded or known location of your drone. This is also on the main screen of the app. Just click the menu in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
You could then enter those coordinates into your phone and hopefully get a lot closer to the last location of your drone. This could be helpful. But I’d still navigate back to the flight screen after getting the GPS coordinates because this would make sure you could see if the controller got back in connection with the drone. To do this, an app like “Find my Drone” would be helpful. This app provides a basic compass, while keeping your current location and then lets you manually input the last known coordinates of your drone. When you move, it tells you how close you are. If the numbers are getting smaller, you are getting closer.
Lastly though, if you go back into the DJI GO app, and navigate to the “Find My Drone” section on the main screen, you can then click on the drone’s location on the map. First, this is where it will show you the last known coordinates, but secondly, if your drone is still connected to the controller, you can turn on a beeping sound from the ESC on the drone and you can also turn on an LED alert. Both of these things will help you when using the next tip.
When You Get Close, Listen and Look
This might sounds super obvious, but this is what actually led to me finding the drone that I mentioned before. When my brother in law and I got close to the drone, what we finally saw was the red light flashing on one of the Mavic’s extended arms. It was in a grove of trees and the lower light in that area meant that the red flashing lights were visible.
But its also important to listen for your drone as well. While it doesn’t make much noise when it isn’t flying, there is a soft whir that comes from the drone when it is turned on. But, you could also try to quickly spin up the propellers when you get in close proximity to where the drone was last located. Keep in mind though that you don’t really want the the propellers to turn on, you just want to be able to hear them if the drone is re-connected and you have signal. If they spin up enough to hit the grass, some leaves or even a small branch, it could be the thing that allows you to finally find your drone.
Contact the FAA
Finally, if you’ve lost all other hope, you can always reach out to the FAA. I haven’t personally tried this, but the FAA does have a database of registered drones (you know, since it is required to register your drone) and it is possible that your drone may have been recovered and reported. You can either email the FAA at UASregistration@faa.gov or call the FAA at 1-877-396-4636. I would consider this a last ditch effort, but I figure it is probably worth at least a phone call, right?
Hopefully you are never in the position that you lose your drone, or fear losing your drone. But if you are, the tips I mentioned in this article allowed me to successfully recover a drone before the battery even died.