DJI MM crashes into sea for no reason!!!

[Jaypa99]

Hi



Im currently on my travel journey around Australia and today just been flying my drone at the beach next to me! Not even far away.. anyway



I updated the homepoint like ever and flew my drone approximately 20 meters straight next to me into the sky to take pictures of the beach

The weather was amazing, clear blue sky, no clouds, no wind!!!!

I’ve got the drone for two months now and I’m a careful pilot and would never fly the drone without caution!

My drone was 50 percent charged and was connected via GPS to 11 satellites!!

As I flew my drone 20 meters into the sky to bring the drone to a nice spot I let go of controls.

As I let go of the controls, the drone immediately started spiraling out of control and crashed into the sea!

At no point was there any error messages displayed. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!
The drone was flying for only 2 minutes and broke down.
the DJI Service and Stores told me I probably have to pay for it but obviously it wasn’t my fault..

Need help! Thanks

 

[macoman]

You need to post the logs but I am just assuming here that probably one of the props was loose and the drone lost the prop in mid air. But one of the experts here will be able to analyze the log.

 

[sar104]

Yes - start by posting the txt flight log. And one thing I can tell you is that your thread title is incorrect.

 

[Garp]

I was flying over water and it suddenly lost altitude, I just saved it in time. Hasn't done it since but it's a worry because I fly over water all the time...
At 7.55 you see it drop, that's not me doing it.

 

[BullDoggBoyz]

That sucks man...Sorry to hear!! SMH. I'm not an expert by any means, but the fact that you started out using a battery that was depleted to 50% is something I would never do. I'm pretty sure you should always start out with a fully charged RC and fully charged aircraft.

 

[FLPilotshark]

Hi



Im currently on my travel journey around Australia and today just been flying my drone at the beach next to me! Not even far away.. anyway



I updated the homepoint like ever and flew my drone approximately 20 meters straight next to me into the sky to take pictures of the beach

The weather was amazing, clear blue sky, no clouds, no wind!!!!

I’ve got the drone for two months now and I’m a careful pilot and would never fly the drone without caution!

My drone was 50 percent charged and was connected via GPS to 11 satellites!!

As I flew my drone 20 meters into the sky to bring the drone to a nice spot I let go of controls.

As I let go of the controls, the drone immediately started spiraling out of control and crashed into the sea!

At no point was there any error messages displayed. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!
The drone was flying for only 2 minutes and broke down.
the DJI Service and Stores told me I probably have to pay for it but obviously it wasn’t my fault..

Need help! Thanks

Sorry to hear your Mavic Mini crashed into the water brother! Let me ask you a question - did you happen to get it back b/c you're going to have to send your MM back to DJI in order a get a new one or a replacement?
I had a similar issue a while back with my Mavic Air that went down but in order to get a new one, I had to provide my old drone to Dji so they can diagnose the issues which happened not be a Pilot error so they sent me a new one!
Would you mind sharing your flight log for that flight Jaypa99?

 

[pmshop]

I had a similar issue a while back with my Mavic Air that went down but in order to get a new one, I had to provide my old drone to Dji so they can diagnose the issues which happened not be a Pilot error so they sent me a new one!

Depends on the circumstance.
There were known issues with the Spark that I started reading reports of DJI making a final determination with the log files only.
People were able to get a refurb Spark without exchange at no cost under the Care Refresh plan.
This loss of altitude bug is becoming more frequent.
DJI just might do the same here.
Not to get your hopes up...but anything is possible.

My case in point, I had 11 warranty repairs between 2 Mavic Air in under 8 months.
I demanded a refund...I got it!
Mainly be cause they tried to hide 2 warranty repairs.
Thanks to web browser form fill, I found the missing issues that I had checked on the status.

 

[Capt KO]

I was flying over water and it suddenly lost altitude, I just saved it in time. Hasn't done it since but it's a worry because I fly over water all the time...
At 7.55 you see it drop, that's not me doing it.

I was flying over water and it suddenly lost altitude, I just saved it in time. Hasn't done it since but it's a worry because I fly over water all the time...
At 7.55 you see it drop, that's not me doing it.

The drop in your video is typical of what most of us are seeing when flying under 20’ over water. It seems the only way to stop it is to block the bottom sensors with electrical tape or something similar so it cannot see anything below it. Just be careful when you land to manually to slow the decent speed. Landing protection will be disabled.

 

[Capt KO]

I don’t understand why people did not buy care refresh. So inexpensive and so necessary, especially for a new pilots. I am a safe pilot with no crashes, at least no damage, and I still purchased the care refresh. Even the extended, when offered. A first run, with no background, was a no brainer for me. Just hoping it keeps me lucky. Alas, We need some serious Mini upgrades, soon.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

I don’t understand why people did not buy care refresh. So inexpensive and so necessary, especially for a new pilots.

Alas, We need some serious Mini upgrades, soon.

True, especially for that mini price point, it's good insurance for particularly new pilots.

The OP doesn't say of they managed to retrieve their mini, from what they posted it could have gone either way.
Of course in MOST cases (unless a flight log indicates a blatant aircraft fault) you have to recover the body for Care Refresh for it to apply.

I agree, the mini is FAR from market ready.
There are a real real dangers for new pilots, and this is where the mini is doing well with its price point.
Some of the faults are bad (uncontrolled descents, prop pitch problems, battery power) and flight telemetry could be better for wind observation.

 

[BullDoggBoyz]

I don’t understand why people did not buy care refresh. So inexpensive and so necessary, especially for a new pilots. I am a safe pilot with no crashes, at least no damage, and I still purchased the care refresh. Even the extended, when offered. A first run, with no background, was a no brainer for me. Just hoping it keeps me lucky. Alas, We need some serious Mini upgrades, soon.

Care refresh....Nah, not for me! I have "Jake" from State Farm instead. "What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm"? ?

 

[tnuz]

I read another post about the need to block the bottom sensors with tape when flying over water. It seemed to work for others but I don’t want to take away the functions of those sensors so I’m not doing that. However, with all these reports I’m not flying over water much either until we figure this out.

 

[Karl D]

I read another post about the need to block the bottom sensors with tape when flying over water. It seemed to work for others but I don’t want to take away the functions of those sensors so I’m not doing that. However, with all these reports I’m not flying over water much either until we figure this out.

The sensors can play havoc when flying low over water thats why they get turned off.

 

[crosswired]

quoted: 'My drone was 50 percent charged and was connected via GPS to 11 satellites!! '
..tbh I've never took off without at least 15 satellites locked on, yet again it shows very poor minis gps subsystem. it definitely shows that mini isnt market ready

 

[PS01]

That sucks man...Sorry to hear!! SMH. I'm not an expert by any means, but the fact that you started out using a battery that was depleted to 50% is something I would never do. I'm pretty sure you should always start out with a fully charged RC and fully charged aircraft.

Really? I've flown with 50% battery with no problem at all. I always land it safely right after low battery warning flashes.

 

[Azarov]

Hi



Im currently on my travel journey around Australia and today just been flying my drone at the beach next to me! Not even far away.. anyway



I updated the homepoint like ever and flew my drone approximately 20 meters straight next to me into the sky to take pictures of the beach

The weather was amazing, clear blue sky, no clouds, no wind!!!!

I’ve got the drone for two months now and I’m a careful pilot and would never fly the drone without caution!

My drone was 50 percent charged and was connected via GPS to 11 satellites!!

As I flew my drone 20 meters into the sky to bring the drone to a nice spot I let go of controls.

As I let go of the controls, the drone immediately started spiraling out of control and crashed into the sea!

At no point was there any error messages displayed. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!
The drone was flying for only 2 minutes and broke down.
the DJI Service and Stores told me I probably have to pay for it but obviously it wasn’t my fault..

Need help! Thanks

So far it's all speculation kind of stuff.
From my experience, of 5 months flying in Australia there might be number of reasons to ground your drone.
The sun is bright in Australia, so one and the most obvious reason is you may hit the wrong button on RC display in the sun glare.
So why I purchased DJI Goggles.

 

[BullDoggBoyz]

Really? I've flown with 50% battery with no problem at all. I always land it safely right after low battery warning flashes.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying it shouldn't be done. Why, I can't say for sure. If I knew the answers to things like that, I would have probably become some kind of electronics engineer. LOL! Now...The weird caveat to this is that I too have done it, but only with a battery I had just partially used, and without removing it from the AC. Ie- Flew a while and landed to change filters, get a drink, take a break, etc. For whatever reason, there does seem to be a difference from the above scenario as compared to having a 50% charged battery that was in storage for some time, and loading that up and trying to fly anything more than the immediate vicinity. Perhaps it's due to the battery self discharging while in storage, thus changing the parameters of the FW for use before fully recharging...Again, I can't say with any certainty why this might be a factor, but when you look over many of the crashes and fly away cases, more often than not, it seems to be a common denominator that the flights were started with a battery less than fully charged. You can do what you want, but I believe in sticking with what works when it comes to my hard earned money. I personally choose to not mount a stored or removed from my AC battery that is not freshly charged to 100%.