Crashed

Last January: When I go cross-country skiing, I often take at least one camera, and sometimes my drone, along. The cross-country ski trail behind Klosters leads through a fairytale river landscape along the young Landquart River. In January, the sun only reaches this area for a very short time. This means that even on warmer winter days, the forest retains its magic with its snow-covered fir trees.

The same thing happened on this trip. I had my trusty Mavic 2 with me and planned to take some winter photos for my next calendar. The drone was at an altitude of about 300 meters on the mountainside below the Fergenhütte when, without warning, I lost control of it. The controller screen was a chaotic mess, alternating between blue sky and then forest and snow. The whole thing was over in a flash, as the drone crashed somewhere into the terrain!

My theory: At least one motor had failed! Back home, I downloaded the log file from the controller to my PC and began the detective work. It quickly became clear that the drone had crashed into the mountainside at around 90 km/h. I also had the exact coordinates of the crash site. The next day, I set out on snowshoes to search for the device. Without success, as the terrain consisted of large boulders and alder bushes and was covered by a snowpack about one and a half meters thick.

Well, I realized I couldn't continue the search, so I decided to come back after the snow melted. I did this in mid-May. After a short search, I found the device in the expected location. The drone looked a bit damaged, but I was still able to read and examine the contents of the SD card at home. Fortunately, the drone was in "movie mode" when it crashed. I loaded the last video into the video editor and worked my way through the clip frame by frame. Then everything suddenly became clear! There was clearly no technical defect; the drone had engaged in aerial combat with a golden eagle and, of course, had no chance. I was able to extract the images below from the clip.

I've been paragliding (and previously hang gliding) for many years, and over the years I've had several encounters with golden eagles. However, these birds only ever came very close to me during the spring months – presumably because they were busy raising their young and defending their territory. But the fact that an eagle in Jahuar would be so disturbed by a small drone that it would lose patience even in the middle of winter really surprised me.

Conclusion :

The drone was a total loss, but I'm glad I at least found out what caused the crash. And besides, these rather unusual pictures at least partially compensate for the loss :-)