Mavic fell into San Francisco Bay.. how to replace?

[CAlexio]

Probably nothing new on this forum, but deeply saddening to me.. after just a month with my Mavic, I was having a friend hand-launch it from a boat.. somehow he got freaked out by propellers and before they actually started rotating, he sort of.. "threw" it and it plopped into the water. UGH..

so, he told me there is some kind of $500 replacement program for just the unit itself, as I had not yet signed up for any kind of "care" program, I'm highly doubtful of this. Can you someone direct me to what options I have?

thank you.

signed,

Mourning ex-mavic pilot.

 

[AwesoM]

No options since you lost it already. It's like getting insurance after the fact. DJI Refresh would not have helped since you need the drone to return to them for a new one (been there done that) I have State Farm personal articles insurance ($60) for my drone, and i did lose my P4 and they paid me for it. I had heard they offer it pretty much all states except CA. I have 2 items attached to my drone, a Trackimo so I can hopefully see the last known location if for some reason I cannot get it from my DJI logs and Getterback for water lost, it has a 100 foot line that and will float up to the surface so hopefully can be pulled up from the surface. The assumption is that the depth is less than 100ft and you have a boat to go out to the water.

 

[Panamera]

There are no options but to buy a new one, but it's gonna be more then 500$ I would make your friend reimburse you asap, I would be pissed. Anyway if your in the us I think it's 799$?for just the Mavic.

 

[CAlexio]

yea no.. this baby is waaaay at the bottom of the bay.. happened just under golden gate actually.. would have made for some amazing footage LOL.

Again, i was told that for $500 they replace just the drone itself, no accessories.. any truth to this? I knew it wouldn't be any kind of insurance claim.

 

[CAlexio]

There are no options but to buy a new one, but it's gonna be more then 500$ I would make your friend reimburse you asap, I would be pissed. Anyway if your in the us I think it's 799$?for just the Mavic.

why be pissed at a friend?.. he'll do whats right, but I rarely get upset with friends, especially when something is an accident... as most things in life are.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Buy a new Mavic on it's own. If you're able to recover the old one, it's probably dead, but you can salvage it. The motors don't die easy since it's just an EM generator using coils. You can salvage the flight arm, the gimbal assembly, the body, the props, and possibly the SD card. The onboard computer is likely zapped as it was being powered as it filled with water. So you have a lot of spare parts now that you can use to repair your replacement Mavic.

 

[Cyberpower678]

why be pissed at a friend?.. he'll do whats right, but I rarely get upset with friends, especially when something is an accident... as most things in life are.

The friend wanted to hand launch it. He shouldn't have freaked out if he wanted to do it. Lesson learned, don't let anyone use your Mavic.

 

[AwesoM]

yea no.. this baby is waaaay at the bottom of the bay.. happened just under golden gate actually.. would have made for some amazing footage LOL.

Again, i was told that for $500 they replace just the drone itself, no accessories.. any truth to this? I knew it wouldn't be any kind of insurance claim.

It's 700 for the drone only. With the backlog currently you may end up buying a new one and keep the controller as a spare.

 

[Egika]

Won't help you now, but it is key to instruct any helper carefully about the whole process of what's going to happen while hand launching or catching.
Had my GF hand catch the Mavic on a tiny balcony on the 10th floor of a Tokyo hotel.
Went through the process in theory though none of us had tried it before. Knowing it would rev up the props for a few seconds and to not let go under any circumstances was important.
Same for the start process where the props do some self test before they actually start...

 

[Chris23]

I can understand why your friend freaked out. Chalk it up to experience that hand launching/catching is a terrible idea.

 

[james_mav]

Won't help you now, but it is key to instruct any helper carefully about the whole process of what's going to happen while hand launching or catching.
Had my GF hand catch the Mavic on a tiny balcony on the 10th floor of a Tokyo hotel.
Went through the process in theory though none of us had tried it before. Knowing it would rev up the props for a few seconds and to not let go under any circumstances was important.
Same for the start process where the props do some self test before they actually start...

I hope everything worked out alright but having your girlfriend catch the drone for the first time from a balcony seems like a disaster waiting to happen. It wouldn't surprise me if she stuck her face in the props.

 

[Former Member]

If you (or mom or dad) have homeowners or renters insurance it might be covered as a loss. Worth a try.

 

[Foxtrot Uniform]

I can understand why your friend freaked out. Chalk it up to experience that hand launching/catching is a terrible idea.

Nothing wrong with it if done properly. It's the only way to land on a boat...


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

 

[halley]

Had my GF hand catch the Mavic on a tiny balcony on the 10th floor of a Tokyo hotel.

I think all of Tokyo is a no-fly zone anyway. Why do this?

 

[CAlexio]

Nothing wrong with it if done properly. It's the only way to land on a boat...


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

Yea, from a sail boat standing on the rear transom is only way. My friend is actually a longtime drone owner (phantom) as we as a mavic owner.. it was just one of those things, a freak-out, a brain fart. Anyway.. not hear to talk about that, was just asking about replacement cost for the drone by itself. Not sure it's worth making a homeowner insurance claim for something so small, so looks like I'll call tech support at Dji tomorrow and see if they'll just sell me the drone. **** happens.. I'll post the material we filmed yesterday on previous sd card shortly. I'll call it "Bethany's last flight " - that was drones name.. long story.


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

 

[Egika]

I hope everything worked out alright but having your girlfriend catch the drone for the first time from a balcony seems like a disaster waiting to happen. It wouldn't surprise me if she stuck her face in the props.

Not a big deal. Drone was hovering super stable.
Taking off on that 1x2m balcony without GPS and compass was a bit tricky but also went well a few times.
Had to hover in Atti mode for 30s a little more out and away from the building until GPS was fully established though.
I would have loved to be able to engage tripod mode before actually taking off...

 

[Egika]

I think all of Tokyo is a no-fly zone anyway. Why do this?

really? Oops. But it's not stored in the Mavic no-fly zones. Even after acquiring full GPS it didn't tell me accordingly.

 

[halley]

really? Oops. But it's not stored in the Mavic no-fly zones. Even after acquiring full GPS it didn't tell me accordingly.

The Mavic does not have strong geo-fencing data built-in for Japan. You have to look it up yourself. The map I linked is produced by the government (ministry of land, infrastructure, transport, tourism). DJI has a similar dataset on their geo data maps website. However, even that is not complete, and local laws can impose additional NFZs; you should read up on it, because the fines are steep.

In the regulation area of this forum, I provide some other links for your reading.

 

[Nathan Hoover]

yea no.. this baby is waaaay at the bottom of the bay.. happened just under golden gate actually.. would have made for some amazing footage LOL.

Again, i was told that for $500 they replace just the drone itself, no accessories.. any truth to this? I knew it wouldn't be any kind of insurance claim.

Who told you that? Someone from DJI? Same thing happened to me a month ago and I went though 2 levels of support and finally got to someone who said that they used to have a "drone only" program but that they stopped it and there is no choice now but to buy the $1000 package with the controller. So I have a spare controller now. It's been a month though and maybe they will bring back the $750 option sometime.

 

[SafariMan]

Who told you that? Someone from DJI? Same thing happened to me a month ago and I went though 2 levels of support and finally got to someone who said that they used to have a "drone only" program but that they stopped it and there is no choice now but to buy the $1000 package with the controller. So I have a spare controller now. It's been a month though and maybe they will bring back the $750 option sometime.

You can already buy Mavic only w/o RC but...for $899!!!
Looks like they raised the initial price of $750
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