Auto Take-off, Orbit Mode and Complete loss of Control. Horrible crash.

[AJan]

Dear All,

I just went thru the craziest of happenings just a few minutes ago.

Got my Typhoon H in the mail this last Tuesday. Attempted my first flight yesterday but I couldn't get a GPS lock: 'Signal Acquiring Issue". So I called Yuneec CS today and spoke to CS rep. named Angel. Told him about the GPS issue and we discussed possible reasons for the problem. We spoke about possibly returning the aircraft to have the GPS replaced but I told him that I was going to try calibrating the compass and the accelerometer as a last try before sending the bird back.

Anyhow, I did calibrate the compass and the accelerometer and the GPS began to function and acquired a good signal with 20 satellites!

Well, due to my full lack of experience flying, I had the Typhoon do an auto take-off and immediately placed it in orbit mode (AT LEAST I TRIED). However, the drone simply flew up so fast, at full throttle and began to hover above me locked at 120.0m! However, I had set it to a max height of 40m! I suddenly realized I had absolutely no control over the bird! Neither the auto-pilot had any control over it. After a few minutes trying to do something about this situation, I unexpectedly maintained my calm and called Yuneec CS again!

To my surprise, the same agent, Angel, took the call! I told him that the chopper was 120m above me but I had no control. He asked me to put it into manual mode which I immediately did but it was also nonresponsive. Then he asked me to put it in "Home" mode and assumed it would fly back. To no avail.

So I have a completely out of control drone above me and I am having an emergency situation call with the CS agent! He then told me that the bird would automatically land once the batteries started to get really low.

Well after some time, I began to get a red alarm on my ST16 saying that the battery was running low and that the altitude from that point on would be at 60 ft max. So the drone began to lose altitude in a controlled fashion. I got a bit excited thinking it would make a safe landing after all. That wasn't the case: the bird just dropped out of the air when it reached approximately 50 meters. It just dropped. Thank God it didn't hit anything or anyone! In that sense, I guess I got lucky.

I asked the agent if he had gone thru a similar situation and he denied ever even hearing anything similar! WOW!

Anyhow, he proceeded on the return and replacement process of the Typhoon H and I will drop it off at UPS tomorrow for the return.

I am a bit skeptical and rather scared of flying a new bird knowing that something like this can happen.

Check out this quick video with the aftermath and am being still in the call for 22+ minutes...

Sounds like Yuneec is making good on replacing the Typhoon H. If that's the case, I wouldn't complain too much, but that's just me. I've had mine since late 2017 and it has been trouble-free. Knock on wood. Hope things work out for you and practice, practice, practice. Cheers.

 

[KEITH KUHN]

Sounds like Yuneec is making good on replacing the Typhoon H. If that's the case, I wouldn't complain too much, but that's just me. I've had mine since late 2017 and it has been trouble-free. Knock on wood. Hope things work out for you and practice, practice, practice. Cheers.

BE CAREFUL ALL DRONES CAN FAIL,
NO MATTER WHAT THE MAKE.
WHEN THEY WORK THEY ARE GREAT.
KEITH

 

[CAVUCO]

You did not mention if you updated all the firmware. I received a brand new bird from my dealer. He said he had updated all the firmware before he sent it to me. But on inspection, they were all earlier, much earlier firmware versions. All kinds of weird behavior until i updated everything, controller, data pilot, camera, everything.

 

[KEITH KUHN]

Sounds like Yuneec is making good on replacing the Typhoon H. If that's the case, I wouldn't complain too much, but that's just me. I've had mine since late 2017 and it has been trouble-free. Knock on wood. Hope things work out for you and practice, practice, practice. Cheers.

 

[Don Crowe]

If you contacted the tech. group in the states they are lying through their teeth to you. I had the same thing happen with my Typhoon last year. At first it was slow to respond to my inputs and in the end it just hovered at about 30 ft. and I had no control no matter what mode I tried. Finally it drifted into the side of a building breaking two props and dropping down on to my wind shield and making a nice hole. Yuneec said the telemetry showed I flew it into the ground which was totally not the case and I ended up paying $250.00 in repairs just to get it back. Between you and me I know of two people thst had their Typhoon's crash because of loosing all control and there are most likely others. When you talked to them they had to know of others with the same problem.