Breeze Crash, advice needed :(

Miro411 · Nov 8, 2018

Hello everyone, I just crashed my Breeze today to the point it no longer gives any sign of life..First of all, that Breeze was brand new when I bought it, I had it for a few months only and flew dozens of time with no problem. I went to the wide clearing with very little trees or other obstacles, calibrated my drone and started flying. I use bluetooth controller and my smartphone is Huawei P10 lite. It all went ok, it flew at about 4m high, I circled few times around me, the speed value was about 2.8m/s, and geofence was set at maximum height and distance (80m high, 100m far).. As I circled few times to check everything was ok, I wanted to go higher and when i moved to about 18m high it started to climb vertically at very high speed at which point it became uncontrolable. It soon drifted vertically high above my eye sight in to the clouds and the last time I saw distance measure on the screen it showed 178m high!!! I remind you again, my geofence was set at maximum height of 80m, so that was not few meters above it, that was more than double height out of the Geofence limit. At that point my screen went all black, the app did work, but I guess camera was lost because of distance , I dont know how far it went, I assume it kept rising because I couldnt hear the machines either. I clicked automatic landing few times, but the screen showed no signals, no nothing. I cant describe how shocked and fightened I felt, because I didnt know where it went or did it fell on somebody. I waited for few minutes that seemed like hours, watching in panic if somebody would come by because I was worried that someone else might be in danger, because I knew the battery was about to die (when I started to fly battery was fully charged). And just as I turned to my bike to cruise around the field I heard a brief sound of propellers, and in the next second my Breeze crashed to the ground with such a force it broke all its legs, propeller guards and bottom mask with sensors, even the battery flew out because of the force it hit the ground. I tried to replace empty battery with new one, fully charged, but it showed no signal, so I guess my drone is lost. Feeling of panic and fear didnt yet leave me, but I do feel very angry and dissapointed, I cant understand how it is possible to go out of the geofence limit, when I always have GPS turned on and I calibrated the drone like I had dozens of time before.
Drone still has warranty, but Im sure no one would grant it because it did crash, and of course, neither flight log is accessible (as far as I know).

Has anyone had similar experience and if somebody has good advice what to do, I would very much appreciate it. Is it worth contacting Yuneec or is it only a loss of time? I live in Croatia and bought my drone via Amazon Prime (german store).. There is no official service to fix my drone in my country as far as I know

AeroJ · Nov 8, 2018

Oh dear - sorry to hear that. It's a truly horrible feeling when something goes out of control and falls out of the sky like this.

You should definitely contact Yuneec in Germany (by phone initially) where you bought the Breeze - they have a reputation for being very helpful in cases like these, though they will probably want to see the flight telemetry so they can try and see what went wrong. That should be in your phone, (not the craft) within a flight log folder inside the Breeze app, which you can access via a File Manager. I presume they will give you further instructions on how to recover that data and send it to them.

Best of luck, and I hope they give you a new one...

h-elsner · Nov 8, 2018

Yes, please contact Europe Service in Kaltenkirchen. Open an Service Request on their web site. They need the invoice from where you brought the Breeze. The you will get an RMA number to send it to Kaltenkirchen in Germany.
Save all FlightLogs from your phone to your PC, just to have the evidences. Yuneec needs to have the Flight logs. The log files naming is {timestamp in ms since 1.1.1970}.log.

br HE

DoomMeister · Nov 8, 2018

This is a definite malfunction of your Breeze and a definite flyaway. Not sure if you are European or US.

Follow the instructions from this link How To: Save Breeze Telemetry (FlightLog files) and upload your files to this thread using the Attach files button. I’ll analyze them and see what I can find.

Just reread your post and see you are from Croatia. Check with the European members to see how the warranty works there.

The other problem is that like me you use the controller to fly. To this date I have not seen a flight log recorded while using the controller. This is a huge problem with Breeze Cam and Yuneec just doesn’t seem like they will ever fix it.

Miro411 · Nov 8, 2018

Thank you all for help, I will try to contact Yuneec Germany and see what will happen then, I checked File Manager flight logs and indeed found them, now I have to copy them to my computer so I could send them. You have all been very helpful and I thank you all very, very much

Hope something like this wont happen to anyone else

I will update you what happened and hope my case will be helpful to others.

DoomMeister · Nov 8, 2018

We would really like the chance to look at your files. Especially if you have files from a flight using the controller.

Miro411 · Nov 8, 2018

Of course, Im sending today`s flight logs during crash (it detected two logs), so I hope it will help and that it can show what happened. I opened the log, but I dont understand much.. I do use controller so I really hope that you can find something in my logs, I am a bit worried if using controller never recorded log before.. Thank you very much for help..
Do you need other logs too?

DoomMeister · Nov 8, 2018

I’ll take a look when I can stand to be at my computer. I had back fusion surgery Monday and was doing well in the hospital, but am now hurting like (h e double toothpicks). Hope it eases up soon.

Miro411 · Nov 9, 2018

Health comes first so I wish You fast recovery and thank You very much for Your time and advice. I will wait until You or someone else can read the flight log so that I can have more info before I contact Yuneec. But the most important thing is for You to recover and please do so, I can wait. Just checked yesterday, I bought it in May so it is less than six months old..

h-elsner · Nov 9, 2018

Unfortunately there are no flights in the two files. Both constant AutoTakeOff=0 - "On the ground". Seems those are only initializing files.

Dateien: 2 Datum von bis Dauer Gipfelhöhe Entfernung Strecke Höchstgeschw. Umax Umin
1541676074912 2018-11-08 12:21:16 12:24:09 02:53 96%
1541676256293 2018-11-08 12:24:18 12:25:50 01:32 93%
Summen Flüge: 0 00:00:00 0.00km

As DoomMeister said, controller will not record FlightLogs on the phone, maybe internal but who knows.

Sorry to say that but the flightlogs will not help to bring light into this incident. Please open a Service Request to Kaltenkirchen. Follow Yuneec.com > country GB or other contries you spoke the language > Support > Service Request.
Good to call them by phone.

br HE

Miro411 · Nov 9, 2018

Thank You very much for help, I tought it recorded something, but it seems it didn`t

I don`t know how to describe this crash to Yuneec without the logs to provide information, but I will surely try

.. I can`t thank You enough for trying to help me and to advise me, I will try to contact Yuneec as soon as possible and hope they will listen to me..As I said before, I bought the drone over Amazon.de, I do speak German, but not as good as English.. I can understand better than I can explain things so I will definitely try to communicate in English.. Thank you so much

DoomMeister · Nov 9, 2018

Thanks for looking at the logs @h-elsner. I will lay odds that a log file was started, but as soon as the Task mode was changed to controller the file was truncated.

The controller mode was an add on to the Breeze Cam app and I am certain that it was not fully integrated with the portion of the app that records the flight logs.

Best of luck with Yuneec. The behavior was most definitely not typical, especially the flight beyond the geofence.

airborne · Nov 16, 2018

Hi Miro411,
The people in Kaltenkirchen know about the truncated logs. So you can not prove your claim for warranty but they can not argue against it either. When I ihad my crash they repaired my Breeze even without conclusive logs. So just give it a try. Now in German:
In Kaltenkirchen kennt man das Problem mit den abgeschnittenen Logfiles. So können weder Du noch Kaltenkirchen beweisen, was wirklich passiert ist. Als ich vor einem Jahr einen Absturz hatte hat Yuneec in Kaltenkirchen anstandslos meine Breeze als Garantiefall repariert. Also würde ich dir raten es einfach mal zu versuchen.

Miro411 · Nov 16, 2018

Thank You very much, Im just about to send them the drone, I will attach explanation of crash in the box too, along with flight logs.. I surely hope they can/will fix it or send me replacement drone.. Thank You very much for information and help

gremaso · Nov 22, 2018

Morning all and Happy Thanksgiving. I was flying my Breeze this morning and did a couple of flights no issues. I then did a Journey Mode at max distance and it went out and as it was coming back in it appears it lost connection, cause it just hovered I'd say at around 175 ft. I then did a RTH and it flew on top of me and started landing. Then at around 30 ft it just plummeted to the ground, cracking a couple legs. I now power it on and the red light will never turn green, although it broadcasts it's WiFi SSID and I can connect to it, but the app will not connect to the drone.

I have contacted Yuneec and sent them the flight logs. The drone is only a couple months old.

Attached is the flight log for when the crash occurred.

These are the videos shot during the flight:

Regards,

Jose

h-elsner · Nov 22, 2018

This is no pilot error. The incident happened during RTH automatic landing. Pitch and roll are jumping suddenly and the it lost hight rapidly. It could be a prop was broken at this moment. Motor status says: all 4 motors OK.

Connection lost for 13sec at 2018-11-22 08:38:37. For that, no indication why is visible in logs.

br HE

DoomMeister · Nov 23, 2018

I'll do a sequential reading of the telemetry file.

It starts on Nov 22, 2018 at 08:35:20
Journey mode is initiated at 08:35:55
Takeoff is initiated at 08:35:39
Breeze becomes airborne at 08:36:03
You manually position the Breeze to where you want to start the first Journey
At 08:36:40 the first low altitude journey initiated, went out over the ballfield, and returned at 08:37:18
You then manually repositioned the Breeze a few meters higher
At 08:37:58 the second journey was initiated flying higher and at a steeper angle than the first
At 08:38:20 the Breeze experienced a strange diversion to its flight path then continued its sloped rise
At 08:38:24 communication was interrupted for 13 seconds and re-established at 08:38:37
Telemetry shows the Breeze to be following the journey to its peak and returning to the area where the original turbulence was encountered about 08:38:54, Journey mode had been exited and Pilot mode engaged at 08:38:42
At 08:38:57 you manually engaged a RTH command and the Breeze started heading to the takeoff point
At 08:39:14 the Breeze appears to reach the takeoff point, enters landing mode, and just drops like a rock with approximately 50% battery power remaining and impacts the ground at about 08:39:17 from a height of about 31meters over those last 3 seconds

No errors were ever recorded, and there were no motor faults. I'm attaching the flight path shown in Google Earth Pro that was generated in a kml file from @h-elsner 's q500log2kml program. If you wish to use the kml file yourself, just remove the .txt from the end of the file.

gremaso · Nov 23, 2018

DoomMeister said:
I'll do a sequential reading of the telemetry file.

It starts on Nov 22, 2018 at 08:35:20
Journey mode is initiated at 08:35:55
Takeoff is initiated at 08:35:39
Breeze becomes airborne at 08:36:03
You manually position the Breeze to where you want to start the first Journey
At 08:36:40 the first low altitude journey initiated, went out over the ballfield, and returned at 08:37:18
You then manually repositioned the Breeze a few meters higher
At 08:37:58 the second journey was initiated flying higher and at a steeper angle than the first
At 08:38:20 the Breeze experienced a strange diversion to its flight path then continued its sloped rise
At 08:38:24 communication was interrupted for 13 seconds and re-established at 08:38:37
Telemetry shows the Breeze to be following the journey to its peak and returning to the area where the original turbulence was encountered about 08:38:54, Journey mode had been exited and Pilot mode engaged at 08:38:42
At 08:38:57 you manually engaged a RTH command and the Breeze started heading to the takeoff point
At 08:39:14 the Breeze appears to reach the takeoff point, enters landing mode, and just drops like a rock with approximately 50% battery power remaining and impacts the ground at about 08:39:17 from a height of about 31meters over those last 3 seconds

No errors were ever recorded, and there were no motor faults. I'm attaching the flight path shown in Google Earth Pro that was generated in a kml file from @h-elsner 's q500log2kml program. If you wish to use the kml file yourself, just remove the .txt from the end of the file.

View attachment 12593

Thank you for such a wonderful analysis. Hopefully Yuneec will see the same thing and repair/replace my Breeze.

DoomMeister · Nov 23, 2018

gremaso said:
Thank you for such a wonderful analysis. Hopefully Yuneec will see the same thing and repair/replace my Breeze.

I was very puzzled at the area of turbulence on the second journey and that it was at that point that the RTH took place. But the sudden drop at the end was very startling to me.

For future reference to you, if there is a loss of WiFi connectivity the Breeze will hover at the point of loss for about 30 seconds attempting reconnection on its own. If that fails it will do an automatic RTH and hover another 30 seconds at the point of takeoff attempting to reconnect. If it still fails to reconnect it will then auto land. There is no need for the pilot to switch modes and manually do an RTH.

Hoping things are starting to recover more from the hurricane season of 2017. PR took a major beating and the relief effort from our “President” was abysmal in my opinion.

Hope all goes well with Yuneec.

gremaso · Nov 24, 2018

DoomMeister said:
I was very puzzled at the area of turbulence on the second journey and that it was at that point that the RTH took place. But the sudden drop at the end was very startling to me.

For future reference to you, if there is a loss of WiFi connectivity the Breeze will hover at the point of loss for about 30 seconds attempting reconnection on its own. If that fails it will do an automatic RTH and hover another 30 seconds at the point of takeoff attempting to reconnect. If it still fails to reconnect it will then auto land. There is no need for the pilot to switch modes and manually do an RTH.

Hoping things are starting to recover more from the hurricane season of 2017. PR took a major beating and the relief effort from our “President” was abysmal in my opinion.

Hope all goes well with Yuneec.

Thank you for the pointers regarding RTH and loss of connectivity. As far as the turbulence, that's weird because it was a beautiful and calm morning, no wind at all. As a matter of fact, I had been shooting in the morning and this was my last flight before going home. Some of other videos I took that morning (raw):

As far as the recovery from Maria, I have to say the island is doing well, although there are still signs of the hurricane, such as 90% of the roads are dark at night, frequent power losses, etc. In all fairness, recovery efforts in PR are much more complicated than FL, or TX for example. As our President stated, “This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water,” and that does complicate logistics. Add to that that most of the power is generated in the south of the island and most people live in the north, and transmission lines have to go up and down the central mountain range that runs across the island. Many of the transmission line towers had to be taken to placed via helicopter because of lack of accessibility through the forest.

Jose