"I always keep my hand on the switch ready to flip back to manual mode whenever I'm in an auto mode, but in this case it was already switched to manual mode. So the correct course of action would have been to switch it to an auto mode and then back…"
I was doing some low and slow figure 8s with my 3DR quad in the park when suddenly it started a fast climbing turn, heading for points south, until it crash landed about 30 feet up in a tree: http://www.droneshare.com/view/t7kv6kThe log shows it…