Mavic Air disconnected and landed in Ocean

[Thio]

Hello all - came across the forum after some unfortunate circumstances with my Mavic Air yesterday. Very helpful and I look forward to hours of reading ahead.

So.....currently on Maui and have flown my Mavic Air 4-5 times with no issues. Was flying yesterday and after about 10-12 minutes of flying I was flying it back in. The MA was about 100 feet from me just stopped mid flight. No obstructions, plenty of battery etc in the flight path to have caused this. I lost all control of the it at this point and could do nothing. Tried swiping the auto land button but nothing. Then suddenly it started to fly straight up and away from me. I had a disconnected from drone error (or something to that affect). The real problem was the drone established a new home location at some point during my flight an dI have no idea how or why. So with no luck reconnecting to the drone I assume it "Returned Home" which had been reset over the ocean. Drone self landed in the ocean and it's gone.

Is this user error? What did I do to that would have caused a new home location to have been established? I know I did nothing wrong to cause it to randomly disconnect and am looking for any feedback. Do I have any chance of reimbursement from DJI? I assume I go to their website and start the claims process?

I have done all necessary firmware updates every time needed (and it seems like almost every time I fly in the last couple weeks). Also, calibrated the drone yesterday before my last flight.

For what it's worth, I also have a Phantom 4 and have had it for a couple years. Not brand new to flying.

Thank you for reading and any suggestions or info is much appreciated.

 

[Simmo]

Sorry for your loss. You will need to upload your flight logs Thio.
DJI Flight Log Viewer

 

[Jon1976]

Sorry for your loss. You will need to upload your flight logs Thio.
DJI Flight Log Viewer

This is the second post I read today where the Air created a new RTH point during the flight. Makes me start to wonder if there’s a problem that needs to be addressed by DJI.

 

[Hpacura]

Post the logs

 

[Thio]

I believe I just uploaded the logs.......but not 100%. Please let me know.

Thank you

 

[Simmo]

Post the link back here.

 

[Thio]

Thank you

DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[Simmo]

Hey Bud, sorry for your loss.
To me it looks like you were very quick to take off before you had built up enough GPS Health. Home point had not been set at takeoff.
A minute an a bit later, it set a home point. Over the ocean.
There was a warning of 'extreme interfer ence' so perhaps you had a disconnect there, and it went home. Over the ocean, where it was set.

 

[Simmo]

@msinger @sar104

 

[sar104]

This looks like mostly self-inflicted user error. As noted above, the flight started with no GPS lock and no homepoint set:



The homepoint was finally established at 68 s when the GPS health value reach 4, but that was out over the water:



After that the flight continued normally until loss of connection with the RC just before landing. That triggered RTH, and so it flew back to the homepoint and landed.

The only unexplained issue is why the aircraft disconnected. The DAT log from the mobile device includes uplink and downlink quality data, and so might give some indication of what happened.

 

[Thio]

I wanted to post the response from DJI after some back and forth. Pretty much what you guys were saying. I still don't understand the random disconnect.

Thanks for your patience.
For your claimed case, we have already finished the analysis, and the result is as follows:
1. The aircraft worked under OPTI mode since it took off due to the lack of GPS signal, the home point hasn't been recorded at the beginning;
2. T=01:08, H=20.9 m, D=0.3 m, the GPS signal recovered, the home point recorded:20.7519580 -156.4601836;
3. T=04:52, H=2.8 m, D=98.2 m, the pilot moved the elevator forward and the aircraft flew forward, then the flight record ended, the last point:20.7522046 -156.4592782;

With the record ended without any sign of abnormality, we could not verify what happened afterwards.
We truly appreciate your support for DJI. If you could not recover the aircraft and consider to purchase another one, we can try to especially apply a 30% off discount for Mavic Air(Onyx Black) without charger and remote. If you would like to take the offer, please offer us the following info:
Shipping address:
Contact name:
Phone number:

The reason they cannot verify what happened is that the remote disconnected from the MA. I want to continue to get educated on this issue (random disconnect from aircraft). I feel like I am reading about it often. It has never happened to me with my Phantom 4.

Have there been software updates of late that address this issue? When I lost my drone 3 weeks ago I had all the current updates. What is the proper procedure when this does happen? Last, I assume it is necessary with every flight to take off and hover for a bit to establish the home point?

Anyway, I have found this forum to be so helpful and realize I need to further my education on drones as a whole.

Thanks guys

 

[swooshdave]

Why did you take off without GPS locked? Homepoint is based off GPS. The other thing you could have done is change the setting for when signal was lost so that the aircraft just hovers instead of lands. You might have a chance to recover the signal and bring it back to land. Anytime you fly over water you need to be prepared for the worst. It seems you were in too much of a hurry.

 

[sar104]

I wanted to post the response from DJI after some back and forth. Pretty much what you guys were saying. I still don't understand the random disconnect.

Thanks for your patience.
For your claimed case, we have already finished the analysis, and the result is as follows:
1. The aircraft worked under OPTI mode since it took off due to the lack of GPS signal, the home point hasn't been recorded at the beginning;
2. T=01:08, H=20.9 m, D=0.3 m, the GPS signal recovered, the home point recorded:20.7519580 -156.4601836;
3. T=04:52, H=2.8 m, D=98.2 m, the pilot moved the elevator forward and the aircraft flew forward, then the flight record ended, the last point:20.7522046 -156.4592782;

With the record ended without any sign of abnormality, we could not verify what happened afterwards.
We truly appreciate your support for DJI. If you could not recover the aircraft and consider to purchase another one, we can try to especially apply a 30% off discount for Mavic Air(Onyx Black) without charger and remote. If you would like to take the offer, please offer us the following info:
Shipping address:
Contact name:
Phone number:

The reason they cannot verify what happened is that the remote disconnected from the MA. I want to continue to get educated on this issue (random disconnect from aircraft). I feel like I am reading about it often. It has never happened to me with my Phantom 4.

Have there been software updates of late that address this issue? When I lost my drone 3 weeks ago I had all the current updates. What is the proper procedure when this does happen? Last, I assume it is necessary with every flight to take off and hover for a bit to establish the home point?

Anyway, I have found this forum to be so helpful and realize I need to further my education on drones as a whole.

Thanks guys

There was no apparent reason for the disconnect. Did the RC shut down? If not then you might want to pursue the warranty issue on the basis of the disconnect with the aircraft so close, rather than the RTH issue which was pilot error.

On the subject of home points - ideally you should not even take off until the home point is recorded. The only exception might be in a location with poor sky view, where ascending will improve the situation. But be aware that they aircraft may effectively be in ATTI mode until it gets a GPS lock.

 

[swooshdave]

With the Air and Spark you have to assume you may lose connection at any time and plan accordingly.