DJI mini crashed into river - lost

[SkyeHigh]

My mavic 2 air flew into the water without any hand on the elevation control.

Well that says a lot about piloting skills… or lack of. But hey, blame the manufacturer because you were not in control of your aircraft.

 

[Meta4]

My mavic 2 air flew into the water without any hand on the elevation control. When it was in the water the flight record said it was at 1 meter height. DJI says it is pilot error. Bottom line: the drone cannot tell its height when it is 1.5 meter above the water. They said that they would replace it for 15% discount. No thanks.

Maybe it was pilot error, maybe it wasn't.
But no-one can provide useful comment on your incident unless you provide recorded flight data which will show exactly what happened.

 

[Meta4]

GPS elevation is unreliable no matter who the manufacturer is

That's why DJI drones don't get their elevation data from GPS.
It comes from a barometric sensor which measures changes in air pressure, just like a real plane.

 

[AZDave]

That's why DJI drones don't get their elevation data from GPS.
It comes from a barometric sensor which measures changes in air pressure, just like a real plane.

And isn't ever going to be accurate to within one meter over any significant length of time.

 

[z28lt1]

And isn't ever going to be accurate to within one meter over any significant length of time.

And normally that's not a problem, because the vision sensors help not hit the ground, but...



And

 

[Rodbender]

Wow ... you were expecting to have 1 meter elevation resolution when flying over water??? GPS elevation is unreliable no matter who the manufacturer is, and optical sensors are going to have all kind of trouble dealing with water reflections. I think the simple fact is that you didn't understand the limits of your drone ... and that equates to pilot error.

Drone was flying at 2 m height over the land and once over the water it quickly lost altitude and went submarine. DJI says don't fly at less than 3 m height over water. Not a big difference in my view. Bad drone design in my view.

 

[SkyeHigh]

Drone was flying at 2 m height over the land and once over the water it quickly lost altitude and went submarine. DJI says don't fly at less than 3 m height over water. Not a big difference in my view. Bad drone design in my view.

How’s that bad design? What kind of technology do you think could do any better?

Apart from radar there is very little that can give an accurate air to ground measure over multiple surfaces especially over water.

The accuracy of height measurement is no different for full-sized aircraft when close to the ground so why would you expect something tens or even hundreds of thousands of times less expensive to be any better?

 

[AZDave]

Drone was flying at 2 m height over the land and once over the water it quickly lost altitude and went submarine. DJI says don't fly at less than 3 m height over water. Not a big difference in my view. Bad drone design in my view.

You really don't understand you drone, do you. The drone uses barometric pressure (which is all ANY drone realistically has available to it other than visual sensing since GPS isn't precise at all) to determine its elevation. Local barometric pressure could easily be different over water than land ... in either direction depending upon whether the water or land was warmer and which way the wind was blowing. And expecting 1 meter resolution from a barometric pressure sensor at different positions is silly anyway.

If the drone had been using the bottom visual sensors to determine where it was, or at least decide whether it needed to protect itself, I guarantee that the surface of water doesn't provide a determinate reference. Calm water has optical distortion, and waves cause uncertain reflections.

You can say what you want, but the truth is you didn't know what you were doing.

 

[Thomas B]

We’re done here. Nothing new to discuss or learn.