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Found Lost DJI Mavic

Smisteph

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Hi! We are on vacation at a Southern California beach and found someone’s DJI Mavic. We were able to look at the SD card and there are pictures/videos from all over the world on it! I called DJI and the FAA to try to track down the owner, but neither were helpful. It appears to not have been registered with the FAA, and DJI told us they couldn’t help. Any other ideas? How can we reunite this drone with its owner? Thanks!
 
That is very nice of you!

You may want to post this in the DJI forum and it would help if you have a name for that beach:
DJI Products forum
In case someone answers have the person describe the kind of pictures on the card in order to avoid the bad people.

I don't know if the moderators will research/contact an owner but I know that they sometimes look up serial #'s if people are asking if their 2nd hand drone has been activated before or similar.
You can send a personal message to the Mod team but you would need to have an account with this forum:
DJI-FORUM user Personal Info - DJI FORUM

You can also try one of the Mods directly:
DJI-FORUM user Personal Info - DJI FORUM
 
Last edited:
Good of you for doing the right thing! There is a chance the owner is on this forum.

This is a reminder for those of us with aircraft that it is a good idea to leave information on the aircraft with contact information. I have a label with my phone number as well as the message "Please return for a reward" posted on the outside of my aircraft. I also have a readme.txt file on my SD cards with my phone number.
 
Good of you for doing the right thing! There is a chance the owner is on this forum.

This is a reminder for those of us with aircraft that it is a good idea to leave information on the aircraft with contact information. I have a label with my phone number as well as the message "Please return for a reward" posted on the outside of my aircraft. I also have a readme.txt file on my SD cards with my phone number.
Me too ... beat me to it.
that’s exactly what I do.
 
Me too ... beat me to it.
that’s exactly what I do.
Most definitely. It's prominent on the nose of my MP with my cell phone and the word "Reward". Also the FAA number on the right hand side. Hope to never use it.
 
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That is very nice of you!

You may want to post this in the DJI forum and it would help if you have a name for that beach:
DJI Products forum
In case someone answers have the person describe the kind of pictures on the card in order to avoid the bad people.

I don't know if the moderators will research/contact an owner but I know that they sometimes look up serial #'s if people are asking if their 2nd hand drone has been activated before or similar.
You can send a personal message to the Mod team but you would need to have an account with this forum:
DJI-FORUM user Personal Info - DJI FORUM

You can also try one of the Mods directly:
DJI-FORUM user Personal Info - DJI FORUM
Thank you! This is super helpful!
 
It is very nice of you to try to find the owner. You could post a few of the pics here, perhaps someone will recognize them. No doubt someone who travels with their drone has shared/posted their pics. Can't hurt!
 
Hi! We are on vacation at a Southern California beach and found someone’s DJI Mavic. We were able to look at the SD card and there are pictures/videos from all over the world on it! I called DJI and the FAA to try to track down the owner, but neither were helpful. It appears to not have been registered with the FAA, and DJI told us they couldn’t help. Any other ideas? How can we reunite this drone with its owner? Thanks!
What Goes Around, Comes Around !!! Your A Fantastic Human Being, And In Life, The Lord Will Reward You For Your Good Heart, I Salute You For Doing The Right Thing,Finding The Owner, And If It Doesn’t Pan Out, Buy A Controller, And You Will Have A Very Nice Drone ! And At Least YOU TRIED!!! ??????????????????
 
Thanks for being so conscientious. I created a few folders on my SD card and labeled each with some part of my contact info: my name, my address, my phone number, my email address. Thus, if someone used a file explorer and merely looked at the folders on the SD, they would see my info immediately.
 
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This reminds me of a good reason to put a file on your SD card that is a basic text file.
Have all of your contact information on it. If you lose it and someone nice finds it, they can easily find you via phone, email or address.
I'm going to do that myself right now.
 
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Hi! We are on vacation at a Southern California beach and found someone’s DJI Mavic. We were able to look at the SD card and there are pictures/videos from all over the world on it! I called DJI and the FAA to try to track down the owner, but neither were helpful. It appears to not have been registered with the FAA, and DJI told us they couldn’t help. Any other ideas? How can we reunite this drone with its owner? Thanks!

Borrow a friend's DJI remote control, bind it to the drone and download the flight records. Maybe that will give you a clue.

OR...

Examine the SD Card's file metadata. There should be geotags that may give you a clue.

D
 
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Actually, you'd use Assistant to retrieve the logs from the AC. With MA and M2 they are encrypted and readable only by DJI.
The syncing of past flights to the mobile requires logging into the DJI account they were synced to. You'd get new ones though.
 
Actually, you'd use Assistant to retrieve the logs from the AC.

Touché. I stand corrected. It's been a very long time since I had to extract log files from a drone.



With MA and M2 they are encrypted and readable only by DJI.

Really? That's interesting. Then I wonder why DJI told the OP that they couldn't help him????

D
 
Because for DJI to read the AC DAT files, the files would have to be sent to them. Usually they'd read them when the AC is sent for a warranty claim.
Really though, they could look up the SN activation which shows at least the first owner, but they don't want to.
 
Because for DJI to read the AC DAT files, the files would have to be sent to them. Usually they'd read them when the AC is sent for a warranty claim.
Really though, they could look up the SN activation which shows at least the first owner, but they don't want to.
Another reason to love DJI...
 
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