Recreational / Hobbyist UAS pilot reported a lost link during flight. Connection was re-established leading to a safe landing.

Narrative

Prior to my explanation; I'd like to let you know about the equipment I used. The drone is Parrot's 'ANAFI' that comes with a controller; 'Skycontroller 3'; and 3 batteries; each holding a charge for approximately 15 minutes during flight time. A program/app used; 'FreeFlight 6 version 6.7.6' is a program that is loaded on my cell phone. When used for flights; my phone is used in conjunction with 'Skycontroller 3'. Planning for this flight began the evening before on Day 0. On my home computer; I went to login to the Parrot website that 'FreeFlight 6' logs into automatically for each flight. It has been a while since I initially setup my account with Parrot. Because of that I had forgotten my password. After resetting my password; I continued looking for Parrot's 'Contact' information to email them a question; but their site did not an email which I could write. After looking around their website for a while in hope of finding an email address somewhere in the depths of their site; I gave up. Though; I did peruse to see what other drones Parrot had on their website. Later that same evening; on the FreeFlight 6 application; I created a flight-plan using the autonomous flights. It is not the first time I have used the 'Flight Plan autonomous flights' with this UAS. I began using this feature in small increments as I went along to build confidence using autonomous flight feature. I did not take big steps during the learning process. My flight plan consisted of 8 waypoints flying over water west of the shore to approximately 0.5 miles out then turning around to capture a morning sunrise and shoreline. Because sunrise was at XB:01 I had to time it to have the drone positioned facing east just prior to sunrise. I calculated flight to take-off approximately XA:57. According to the plan laid out; the flight would last 9 minutes and 55 seconds from beginning to the end. After the flight plan was created; I insured all the batteries; controller and phone were being charged that evening. Also; I checked the weather to see if the morning was going to be rainy or not. The percentage was low; around 2% to 10% chance. Day 1; The morning of the flight I headed out to the park and arrived at XA:32 in plenty of time to evaluate the weather and prepped the drone for flight. When I arrived at the park; I found another man setting up for an event for later in the morning. Other than the one man; the area was clear of any other pedestrians; so I had plenty of clearance. Making a weather observation I estimated the base of the clouds to be about ¼ mile high; which was plenty in height to clearly fly at the altitude I've planned; 252 feet; which is considerably below base of the clouds of 1320 feet. Temperature was approximately 67 degrees; and the winds were from the east ranging 8 mph to 11 mph. About XA:42 I turned on my ANAFI drone and calibrated to prep for stability and level flight. I checked the blades; and they were in good shape. Checking 'B4UFLY' if it was okay to fly; then; I continued to access the 'Flight Plan autonomous flight'. With the wind information; I adjusted my flight plan from the original distance of approximately 0.65 miles down to 0.5 miles out because of the headwinds the drone may experience on an easterly heading and knowing it would use more battery power on the return flight. XA:56 I placed the drone on the ground but the grass was too tall and interfered with the cooling fan. I immediately picked up the drone and placed it on the park bench; readying it for flight. Shortly after; I proceeded with the flight around XA:57 ±. I piloted the drone off the park bench to a clearing away from the trees prior to activating the 'Flight Plan autonomous flight'. Activating the flight plan the drone responded normally; as it has in the past. I watched it as it headed to the first waypoint then to the next. It responded and performed well. About 2 minutes into the flight is whenthe flight plan went out the window; I lost connection between my controller and the UAS. I loss image being transmitted; I loss status of the UAS; position and attitude reading; nothing. I could see in the plan view on my phone of the flight plan path and the last position of the UAS where communication was lost; approximately 0.4 miles into the flight plan over the water. Normally in plan view an icon representing the UAS color is 'green' but in this case; the icon turned 'red'; full loss of communication. I did not have a good feeling about this happening. I felt at a loss and at the same time; a few scenarios went through my mind. Did the motors fail and fall out of the sky and into the water? Did it remain in flight and stopped traveling forward and was hovering? Did the RTH set in place at launch work? Is it continuing with the autonomous flight on its own? I just did not know what the true status of the UAS was currently. For a moment I even thought of walking away and accept the loss of my UAS but I did not. I stayed in the case the RTH would have been activated and/or communications were to reconnect between the controller and UAS. So; I began to move to a different spot in the park in hope to receive and transmit. Nothing. The man I saw earlier in the park was nearby and I mentioned to him I lost my drone. He walked closer and I pointed out on my phone; attached to the 'Controller 3'; the plan view of the flight plan where the connection was lost and in red. We spoke for a minute; if that; and he mentioned 'he hopes I get my drone back' I thanked him; we exchanged names and he then continue with his business setting up for the event. I continued walking and moving toward the pier to see if communication would resume. By this time; approximately 5 to 7 minutes past since takeoff. Walking toward the pier; I also looked around to see if there were any telephone or power lines nearby that may play a role in the break of communication; but I did not see anything I felt would have caused it to happen. I walked onto the pier and about 50 to 75 feet into the pier; the screen flashed and then connected while walking but a couple of seconds later; connection was lost again. I stopped walking. At the bottom of the screen in a red banner appeared; 'Poor WiFi'. Poor WiFi; I thought to myself. That confused me for a moment. Why did it say that when I had turned off WiFi on my phone. I could not think about the 'WiFi' anymore because I had to think about trying to resume connection with the UAS. I took a couple of step back to several feet back on the pier near the same spot where I experienced the connection and regained connection with the UAS. To my shock; my UAS had gone outside my 'geo fence' settings reaching beyond the geo fence limits set. At a glance; I read; what I think I read was either 1100 or 1700 feet because I was trying to read all the other information about the status; evaluate whether or not the UAS was or was not continuing to follow the flight plan autonomously from what the screen was showing me and make a decision on the next step to control the UAS to safety. I did see the flight plan was no longer active and was ready to be activated. Since the controller had connection/communication with the UAS again; I pressed the button to active the plan again to force the UAS to start all over and head to the first way point and altitude. A second after that decision and action; I pressed the RTH (Return To Home) button. It was difficult to tell if I pressed it in time or not. The connection between the Controller 3 and UAS was lost again. Was my finger just above the button when the loss of connection occurred? Was my finger ON the button when the loss of connection occurred? Or was my finger pressing the button when the loss of connection occurred? It happened to quick. After that fraction of a second; I continued to press RTH a few more times either in frustration or inhope that maybe it received the signal and activated the RTH. This last connection lasted about 30 seconds then; nothing. One minute passed then two minutes passed. Nothing. Then I heard a faint noise high above over the water. I looked up and saw the UAS break through the base of the low clouds. Moments after; the Controller 3 regained connections the UAS. I observed the UAS flight path; and it appeared to be returning to the designated RTH location. I had set the RTH to hover over the ground at 97 feet. High enough at the RTH location to hover above the tree's height; then it would allow me to pilot the drone down to safety to land. Just prior to landing; I noted the battery power remaining was 9%. After packing up; I was thankful there were no low flying aircrafts this morning. Also; I'll have to check about how I am to report this incident.After return home; I activated the 'FreeFlight 6' to review the flight information and to see if with the loss of communication between Controller 3 and UAS if that would show in the flight log FreeFlight 6 creates. I opened the application and found it did not show any of my past flights. I then noticed when I manually tried logging in to the Parrot's server it had the old password. I was disappointed and stupefied. I realized then why the flight was not recorded. I forgot to update the password in the application on my phone and causing it not save any data of the flight. Conclusion; I did learn the hard way; when connection is lost between the 'Controller 3' and UAS; the flight plan loaded and put into action is not loaded onboard the UAS but it resides in the controller unit. If the UAS could have the flight plan loaded onboard it would have maintained within the 'geo fence' limit and never would have broken through the altitude set in-place. This may be something that any and all drone manufacturers could be considered and implemented to have a backup onboard to provide a safer autonomous flight plan.