Part 107 UAS pilot reported while ascending they lost control of the UAS. After control was briefly obtained an uncontrollable sink rate caused the UAS to crash.

Date: 2025-03 · Aircraft: DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise · Phase: climb

Anomalies: aircraft-equipment-problem-less-severe|inflight-event-encounter-fly-away-uas|inflight-event-encounter-loss-of-aircraft-control|inflight-event-encounter-weather-turbulence

Synopsis

Part 107 UAS pilot reported while ascending they lost control of the UAS. After control was briefly obtained an uncontrollable sink rate caused the UAS to crash.

Narrative

I had just completed the Scanlink portion of the drone capture so I landed the drone and replaced the battery. After booting the drone back up and reconnecting to RTK (Real Time Kinematic Processing); I switched from the Scanlink to the DJI Pilot 2 App; and took off. At this time the drone was responding to my controls like normal; and I captured the cable run of the tower. Once I was at the top of the tower; I let go of the up stick; but the drone kept going up. Initially there was a gust of strong wind; about 40 mph or so; which may have messed with something. But the drone kept gaining altitude; not responding to any of my actions; the pause button; or RTH. Eventually; once the drone was at nearly 1900 feet in altitude; I switched to Sports mode which did do the trick; and I was able to take manual control of the drone again. The drone began descending; and around 1000 or 1500 feet; I saw the camera POV start spinning. At this point; I had lost visual contact of the drone; so I was only going off the camera POV. I saw a few near-attempts by the drone to re-stabilize mid-fall; but eventually it came back down to Earth; and I was able to recover it. Not sure what caused the sudden ascent or the sudden spiraling to the ground; it's not an abnormally windy day; and the weather is nice.Controller firmware version 02.01.0518Drone firmware version 10.01.0503

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.