Has anyone experienced this fault?

[Help please]

Hi

I'm not sure this best place to post but anyways, here goes.

Basically I lost my mavic air drone flying on my last intended fly in Cusco (Peru) as I was on holiday there.
It didn't return home nor respond after I performed the dronie quickshot at the 200m distance away setting. Everything seemed ok, until it finished recording at the end of quickshot, however the screen on my phone did not respond/change (it stayed static at the end of the quickshot). It was meant to return but it didn't. I switched my phone screen on/off and got out/in of DJI app but when I got into DJI app, it had been disconnected. I was devastated. I tried looking for the drone but couldn't find it and had to go airport to take flight back UK without my mavic air.

When I arrived back home (UK) I sent DJI my flight records, and after emails back and forth a couple more weeks (where they also requested dropbox link to my flight records folder);
DJI said "The recording ended without sign of abnormality, so could not verify what happened afterwards.....we can offer 30% discount without charger & remote controller...."

I was very disappointed with this response from DJI.

After all, if they are unable to verify what happened after the recording then there was no point of doing any analysis. It defeats the whole purpose of sending the diagniostics across in the first place as the drone did not respond nor return back after the quickshot drownie recording.
Records should be kept of all flights to ensure the drone is performing to what is intended.

Apologies for the rant but I feel drained communicating with DJI with no concrete analysis from them.

Has anyone experienced this and/or know what to do?

I really don't want to buy a new mavic air considering how expensive these things are (((

John

 

[msinger]

Apologies for the rant but I feel drained communicating with DJI with no concrete analysis from them.

Unfortunately, the flight log from the mobile device doesn't always contain a complete record of the flight. In your case, the flight log only contains data up to the point where the Mavic's downlink disconnected. If the problem didn't occur until after that point, then there really is no data to analyze. It sounds like that's what DJI is telling you.

Has anyone experienced this and/or know what to do?

Since you're not able to search for your Mavic, it looks like the 30% if discount is your best option. And if you do buy another Mavic, it would be best to fly within VLOS so you can see the Mavic with your eyes as you're flying. That'll allow you to fly the Mavic back with your eyes if something goes wrong on your mobile device.

 

[Thwyllo]

Unfortunately, the flight log from the mobile device doesn't always contain a complete record of the flight. In your case, the flight log only contains data up to the point where the Mavic's downlink disconnected. If the problem didn't occur until after that point, then there really is no data to analyze. It sounds like that's what DJI is telling you.


Since you're not able to search for your Mavic, it looks like the 30% if discount is your best option. And if you do buy another Mavic, it would be best to fly within VLOS so you can see the Mavic with your eyes as you're flying. That'll allow you to fly the Mavic back with your eyes if something goes wrong on your mobile device.

To be fair, his post implies he was only 200m away but the story isn't complete enough is it. Doesn't say what sort of terrain he was over or what lighting conditions were because that must have been a reason why it couldn't be seen afterwards I'd have thought?

Reading between the lines it's potentially a freezing of the app on the phone, followed by a flyaway because of a delay in rebooting and/or RTH being disabled or not set but that's just intelligent guesswork.

Be useful to know a bit more about the geography and circumstances of the flight. And was it a last-minute rush job before leaving?

 

[aokusman]

Sorry for the loss. I’m new to the magic air myself and have decided not to use any of the automated features thus far. I fear I will have an experience like yours and based on what I’ve read here most fly always occur when the drone is allowed to fly itself. My max distance has been 3000ft and I always fly it home manually. Did you have travel insurance?

 

[msinger]

Reading between the lines it's potentially a freezing of the app on the phone, followed by a flyaway because of a delay in rebooting and/or RTH being disabled or not set but that's just intelligent guesswork.

Mavics don't just fly away on their own though. They are controlled solely by the remote controller. Even if it was still flying in an automated flight mode, that mode could have been cancelled using the remote controller.

 

[Help please]

Unfortunately, the flight log from the mobile device doesn't always contain a complete record of the flight. In your case, the flight log only contains data up to the point where the Mavic's downlink disconnected. If the problem didn't occur until after that point, then there really is no data to analyze. It sounds like that's what DJI is telling you.


Since you're not able to search for your Mavic, it looks like the 30% if discount is your best option. And if you do buy another Mavic, it would be best to fly within VLOS so you can see the Mavic with your eyes as you're flying. That'll allow you to fly the Mavic back with your eyes if something goes wrong on your mobile device.

If it is the case that the Mavic's downlink disconnected, then how is it it did not return home? How can DJI ensure this does not happen again? How can DJI be certain they are not liable for a fault after a disconnection?

It seems after a disconnection, DJI are confident the mavic worked accordingly and point the blame to the customer flying it.
Don't get me wrong, I was a big DJI fan so please don't let me hate you DJI.

To be fair, his post implies he was only 200m away but the story isn't complete enough is it. Doesn't say what sort of terrain he was over or what lighting conditions were because that must have been a reason why it couldn't be seen afterwards I'd have thought?

Reading between the lines it's potentially a freezing of the app on the phone, followed by a flyaway because of a delay in rebooting and/or RTH being disabled or not set but that's just intelligent guesswork.

Be useful to know a bit more about the geography and circumstances of the flight. And was it a last-minute rush job before leaving?

Yes, it was a 200m quickshot at 11am on a bright sunny morning with clear skies. I flew it in the centre of Cusco and did not get VLOS at 200m away (it is a small drone).

 

[Help please]

Sorry for the loss. I’m new to the magic air myself and have decided not to use any of the automated features thus far. I fear I will have an experience like yours and based on what I’ve read here most fly always occur when the drone is allowed to fly itself. My max distance has been 3000ft and I always fly it home manually. Did you have travel insurance?

I do have travel insurance, but the compensation covers nowhere near the £700 I paid for just the drone ((((

 

[ChrisW81]

If it is the case that the Mavic's downlink disconnected, then how is it it did not return home? How can DJI ensure this does not happen again? How can DJI be certain they are not liable for a fault after a disconnection?

It seems after a disconnection, DJI are confident the mavic worked accordingly and point the blame to the customer flying it.
Don't get me wrong, I was a big DJI fan so please don't let me hate you DJI.



Yes, it was a 200m quickshot at 11am on a bright sunny morning with clear skies. I flew it in the centre of Cusco and did not get VLOS at 200m away (it is a small drone).

Once a user is beyond VLOS, DJI can technically not be held liable.
If you had a signal loss, the drone should have switched to RTH mode and raise to the appropriate altitude (if flying below RTH settings) or maintain altitude (if you were already at or above RTH settings).
But the drone still just doesn’t fly away because it wants to. If all the correct settings were in place prior to flight, the terrain mapped and the RTH altitude set accordingly to avoid taller objects, then you may very well should have had a returned drone.
I’m aware that other things could have possibly affected the flight however.

 

[msinger]

If it is the case that the Mavic's downlink disconnected, then how is it it did not return home?

The Mavic will not attempt to return home until the uplink (the remote controller signal) drops. Even at that point, the Mavic is sometimes not able to return back to the original home point. Here are the most common reasons why that might happen:

• The home point was not marked before taking off.
• The home point was reset to a different location after taking off (and the Mavic landed at the new home point).
• The Mavic was flying in ATTI mode and was unable to return to the home point since it was not using its GPS data.
• The Mavic was not able to make it back to the home point because it was flying into a strong head wind.
• The battery reached the critically low level before the Mavic was able to return to the home point (causing it to auto land at its current location).
• The Mavic crashed into an obstacle on the way back to the home point.
• The Mavic met some type of obstacle that it could not overcome and landed since it could not get back to the home point.
• The Mavic suffered some type of hardware problem and crashed/landed.
• The Mavic lost a prop and crashed.
  
  

How can DJI ensure this does not happen again?

In the majority of cases, Mavics are lost due to some type of pilot error. In less common cases, Mavics are lost due to hardware issues. Since most of these things are out of DJI's control, there really is nothing they can do to ensure something like this will never happen again.

 

[Help please]

Although dji would not refund me a new drone, I'm still getting new one

But how can I ensure it doesn't get lost/disconnect/does not respond to remote in future besides not being out of VLOS?
Are there any good alternative things I can do to prevent this happening again?

 

[InvisibleName]

Although dji would not refund me a new drone, I'm still getting new one

But how can I ensure it doesn't get lost/disconnect/does not respond to remote in future besides not being out of VLOS?
Are there any good alternative things I can do to prevent this happening again?

Don't take off?? Sorry, couldn't resist it!

Make sure:
You set RTH height to a reasonable altitude for your location
Your preferred option for RTH is set - Come bakc to RTH point, hover at current location, or land at current location
You've got at least 10 satellites
The GPS health is good
The icon for the drone's heading on the display matches the physical direction of the drone
Once you've taken off, ensure the RTH locations is recorded (audio feedback from controller) - gain a reasonable altitude so that the image stored is accurate

 

[charlas]

Also worth remembering that the easiest way to cancel any 'automation' is to go sports on/off. So if you suspect it's flying to the wrong place due to a bad RTH or the phone app crashes etc, flick that quickly with no control input on the sticks, it should then sit and hover while in sports mode. Get your bearings, restart the phone, re-connect everything and see if you get signal again. If you do then bring it back, if not see if you can hear it (200m away you should be able too).

If there's no terrain issues bring it down so you can hear/see it and manually land. The tablet/phone isn't the controller remember, the controller is the link to the craft after all.

 

[aokusman]

Also worth remembering that the easiest way to cancel any 'automation' is to go sports on/off. So if you suspect it's flying to the wrong place due to a bad RTH or the phone app crashes etc, flick that quickly with no control input on the sticks, it should then sit and hover while in sports mode. Get your bearings, restart the phone, re-connect everything and see if you get signal again. If you do then bring it back, if not see if you can hear it (200m away you should be able too).

If there's no terrain issues bring it down so you can hear/see it and manually land. The tablet/phone isn't the controller remember, the controller is the link to the craft after all.

Thanks for that tip. Hopefully I never need it.

 

[charlas]

Sports mode is your friend, turns off all the 'smart' functions and get's you back to a pure vlos experience... remember though full stick down/forward will be a LOT faster than in GPS mode!