5 days later, my Mavic Air just died (RIP)

John23 · Feb 3, 2018

Hello world, I'm new here and I'm new with drones as well

This morning (2 hours ago) I've played a bit with my first drone : the Mavic Air (bought 5 days ago in the Paris DJI store but we don't really care about that information right)

I was so pleased being able to flyyyy around my city today cause we had no rain for the first time
I'm living not so far from a small river and the idea was to fly over it in order to grab some nice video, brushing past the water.

The idea was : flying through a small bridge

So, yes this morning I took my young Mavic Air, took off gently using the remote control linked to a smartphone, started to fly over the river, no issue, then starting to fly through the bridge.

I've started feeling a bit of wind probably as the drone was shaking a little bit, but not too much, and kept going through the bridge (probably 8 meters (27 foot) large ?)

BUT THEN the drone refused any more move
My remote control was like useless

So the drone was under the bridge
at almosth the middle of it
I saw a yellow light on the drone (or was it red ?)
no way about making flying it back to me !
the drone started to move to the pole and hit it once, twice and I think I saw a small spark
At the third time it just crashed into the pole and felt into the water.

End of the game.

This is the video I got from the smartphone / DJI Go 4 application cache
as you can see the communication looks broken at the middle of the bridge : https://humanize.me/drop/VideoClip-q35.mp4

I'm quite sad cause I've lost a great toy/tool/drone/friend/lol but I wish I can understand what the issue was

Was it because of the water + wireless reception ?
Was it something else ?

Cheers everyone,

NickB · Feb 3, 2018

Sorry to hear its lost but trying to fly under that bridge whilst being new to drones was a bit silly.
I'm guessing the steel inside that bridge probably was the cause.
1 compass may have thrown a wobbler or.
2 as it disconnected it may have started to climb during rth.

I have been flying 10 years, 5 with multirotors and drones and there's no way i would of attempted this!

Simmo · Feb 3, 2018

You know about CA (Collision avoidance)
You did read the manual?

synaesthesia · Feb 3, 2018

Sounds like the drone lost connection, tried to return to home, but couldn't fully cater for the fact it was under a bridge.

My first take off with my Air was in doors (I know, everything on the internet says this is a bad idea) in a similar sized space to what you have under that bridge (maybe a bit more vertical space) and it was fine taking off and landing but once it was in the air, the obstacle avoidance was not happy at all about the amount of things it could see around it and stopped the drone from moving much.

Kilrah · Feb 3, 2018

Lots of thick concrete -> loss of reception (that's the yellow blink you saw) -> by default that triggers a climb to RTH altitude before coming back home, but since it can't know there's something above it it flies into the bridge when climbing and it's game over.

You want to change the default behavior of returning home to jsut hovering and waiting when you're flying under something that's lower than your RTH altitude, so that at least you get a chance to move closer to recover communication if it's lost.

MavicMo · Feb 3, 2018

Going to be brutally honest...

Completely YOUR fault! It took all but 1 second to see in the video attempting to fly under that bridge wasn't going to end well. If I was there standing next to you, I'd have told you NOT to do it. That is a thick concrete bridge low to the water probably filled with rebar and even if it wasn't it was wide it would have been hard for the MA to receive a GPS/GLONASS signal.

Without the logs its only speculation but from what I know and have seen of DJI drones, I think it got under the bridge, lost GPS tried to RTH, had issue with VPS because of its height off the water and just drifted...

You aren't alone. Every DJI drone I've bought and joined a forum. There are always stories like yours from new drone pilots...

I think if nothing else its a good reminder to ANYONE new to drones of what not to do.

John23 said:
Hello world, I'm new here and I'm new with drones as well

This morning (2 hours ago) I've played a bit with my first drone : the Mavic Air (bought 5 days ago in the Paris DJI store but we don't really care about that information right)

I was so pleased being able to flyyyy around my city today cause we had no rain for the first time
I'm living not so far from a small river and the idea was to fly over it in order to grab some nice video, brushing past the water.

The idea was : flying through a small bridge

So, yes this morning I took my young Mavic Air, took off gently using the remote control linked to a smartphone, started to fly over the river, no issue, then starting to fly through the bridge.

I've started feeling a bit of wind probably as the drone was shaking a little bit, but not too much, and kept going through the bridge (probably 8 meters (27 foot) large ?)

BUT THEN the drone refused any more move
My remote control was like useless

So the drone was under the bridge
at almosth the middle of it
I saw a yellow light on the drone (or was it red ?)
no way about making flying it back to me !
the drone started to move to the pole and hit it once, twice and I think I saw a small spark
At the third time it just crashed into the pole and felt into the water.

End of the game.

This is the video I got from the smartphone / DJI Go 4 application cache
as you can see the communication looks broken at the middle of the bridge : https://humanize.me/drop/VideoClip-q35.mp4

I'm quite sad cause I've lost a great toy/tool/drone/friend/lol but I wish I can understand what the issue was

Was it because of the water + wireless reception ?
Was it something else ?

Cheers everyone,

beachcombing · Feb 3, 2018

John23 said:
Hello world, I'm new here and I'm new with drones as well

This morning (2 hours ago) I've played a bit with my first drone : the Mavic Air (bought 5 days ago in the Paris DJI store but we don't really care about that information right)

I was so pleased being able to flyyyy around my city today cause we had no rain for the first time
I'm living not so far from a small river and the idea was to fly over it in order to grab some nice video, brushing past the water.

The idea was : flying through a small bridge

So, yes this morning I took my young Mavic Air, took off gently using the remote control linked to a smartphone, started to fly over the river, no issue, then starting to fly through the bridge.

I've started feeling a bit of wind probably as the drone was shaking a little bit, but not too much, and kept going through the bridge (probably 8 meters (27 foot) large ?)

BUT THEN the drone refused any more move
My remote control was like useless

So the drone was under the bridge
at almosth the middle of it
I saw a yellow light on the drone (or was it red ?)
no way about making flying it back to me !
the drone started to move to the pole and hit it once, twice and I think I saw a small spark
At the third time it just crashed into the pole and felt into the water.

End of the game.

This is the video I got from the smartphone / DJI Go 4 application cache
as you can see the communication looks broken at the middle of the bridge : https://humanize.me/drop/VideoClip-q35.mp4

I'm quite sad cause I've lost a great toy/tool/drone/friend/lol but I wish I can understand what the issue was

Was it because of the water + wireless reception ?
Was it something else ?

Cheers everyone,

So, it did not "die". And certainly did not "just die".

You killed it.

As others have said, flying it under the bridge like that was a mistake. Complete user error.

kakao · Feb 3, 2018

Sorry for your loss, but this was an extremely inappropriate endeavour ..

Top Hat · Feb 3, 2018

shb · Feb 3, 2018

Don't you know that the drone uses electromagnetic waves to communicate with the controller and Gps and they don't go through metal?

trooper · Feb 3, 2018

Just lol. Words fail me.

OldBlueHeron · Feb 3, 2018

RTFM...

Simmo · Feb 3, 2018

OldBlueHeron said:
RTFM...

And now when you have a bit of experience, and want to say RTFM to these 'newbies', you feel like a prick!? At least I do!!!

Cliff_622 · Feb 3, 2018

Sorry buddy,...I DO feel bad for you. but I gotta tell you that you chose the WORST scenario that I could think of to fly into. You literally gave the drone every challenging condition and asked it to fly down a rabbit hole.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad but,...even if you made it out OK,..it wouldn't have been an interesting shot anyway.

The only way I would have gone in there was if I saw a famous celebrity doing something highly illegal inside. (like Bill Gates smoking crack) For that I would have done it,... but that's about it.

Sorry man. That sucks.

OldBlueHeron · Feb 3, 2018

Simmo said:
And now when you have a bit of experience, and want to say RTFM to these 'newbies', you feel like a prick!? At least I do!!!

I really don’t. It’s a thousand dollar item that you put in the air. Do the research, seems like common sense.

MichiganMavic · Feb 3, 2018

The thread should of been titled “Murder under the Bridge”. As soon as I read about going under , I thought to myself, self, this won’t be good. ANY concrete bridge will have rebar in it. I have issues landing in my driveway sometimes because of all the rebar and metal. Next time, turn off sensors. Sometimes the nanny stuff can get you in a jam, not help.

cappy24 · Feb 3, 2018

you should have bought a gently used spark for your first drone...ebay is full of them

ac0j · Feb 3, 2018

That would have been doable by an experienced drone pilot. With all flight aids shut off. Atti mode.
But with GPS, collision avoidance sensors and RTH turned on, this will happen every time.

Talley · Feb 3, 2018

Sorry man. Sorry to hear but ya that is a recipe for disaster flying under that bridge like that.

But even still I've flown my P3P under bridges a few times but it was flying fast and I had line of sight with controller and drone. Only did it a few times. I won't be doing it again though.

webvan · Feb 3, 2018

ac0j said:
That would have been doable by an experienced drone pilot. With all flight aids shut off. Atti mode.
But with GPS, collision avoidance sensors and RTH turned on, this will happen every time.

Like with a "simple" drone yes, except you can't turn off ALL assistance on the Mavic (or Spark) right ?

"You want to change the default behavior of returning home to just hovering" - That wasn't an option on the Mavic or Spark, is it now ?