Mavic Crashes into itself?

jhansen86 · Sep 17, 2017

Hi, This is my first time posting as i am a new Mavic owner. Yesterday i had a crash, the drone was flying fine then fell out of the sky without warning. After looking into this more closely the front left arm has folded in while flying and came into contact with the rear arm. See pictures for details.

I am wondering if this has happened to anyone and how they went about repair or dealing with DJI on this. I cant see how the arm would have come in during flight without fault but not sure how DJI are going to see this in regards to warranty or whether they will claim user error.

Cheers,

jhansen86 · Sep 17, 2017

I was flying in active track following someone on a quad bike. Distance from the ground was approximately 7m and speed was low, the drone had just lost the subject in the active track and i was ascending before flying it home. I could not see the drone at the time so could not rule out bird strike. The right rear arm has completely detached beside cables and the gimbal bracket has broken so i have not tried to fly again yet. I have only just contacted DJI but obviously have not heard back yet as they are closed over the weekend.

msinger · Sep 17, 2017

Check out your TXT flight log to see if it explains what happened. You can upload and view it online here. If you'd like other people to review and comment on your flight log, then please post a link back here after you upload it.

jhansen86 · Sep 17, 2017

that was the last thing the app said, it came up with over-current and then the camera started jumping about (obviously when the propeller started to hit the drone) and then it fell from the sky.

The arm and gimbal have been damaged from ground impact, looks like both rear arms took the impact and bent up cracking the over extension stops. The right arm may go back in, i have not really tried yet, was waiting to hear form DJI.

If it is not covered by warranty then i have it insured in any case, i assume DJI are the only repariers?

msinger · Sep 17, 2017

jhansen86 said:
DJI are the only repariers?

Yes, if you're looking for a warranty repair. Otherwise, you can find some other repair shops here.

jhansen86 · Sep 17, 2017

Looking at the video, there is a powerline early in the flight that the landing gear may have clipped and pushed this arm in.

msinger · Sep 17, 2017

Yes, that would do it. If you check out your flight log at my link above, the data will show if you clipped something.

jhansen86 · Sep 17, 2017

Masheen said:
That is good news and a relief to hear !!

These things can get pretty expensive pretty quick.

Very quickly, at least the insurance excess isn't too bad. Just the time without my drone now...

jhansen86 · Sep 17, 2017

Thanks for everyone help here. I have not yet worked out how to download the flight record from my iphone 6. I am an android user typically and dont ever use iphone but i had a spare unit from work that i use just for the Mavic.

msinger · Sep 17, 2017

jhansen86 said:
I have not yet worked out how to download the flight record from my iphone 6.

You can find instructions here.

tracer bullet · Sep 17, 2017

Ugh, this is why I have been too nervous to use active track. I hope you get things up and running again quickly!

dewster · Sep 19, 2017

DJI would claim that your wrap job causes the arm to fold onto itself.

Goodpeopledrone · Sep 23, 2017

dewster said:
DJI would claim that your wrap job causes the arm to fold onto itself.

That's my concern with wraps. They unstick and end up in the rotors.

djjordans5 · Oct 15, 2017

Hey Guys!

i was searching around the net tonight because i had the same issue today with the exact same wing folding in.

I was flying about 2km away from me and about 200m high at my farm.

The drone was returning to home when the image looked like the drone was tumbling down, i then got a black screen for about 5 seconds.

The drone then came back online and continued to fly back and i noticed a big drop in altitude however the drone was returning.

When the drone returned i noticed a few scratches and marks on the battery and the propellors.

I lined them up and it looked like the same arm on the left folded in during flight however somehow recovered itself.

Super weird and wondering how this could happen being so high in the sky besides a bird attacking the drone.

I wasn't actually recording the flight during the time of the incident so not sure how to find out what happened.

Montypaks · Oct 15, 2017

djjordans5 said:
Hey Guys!

i was searching around the net tonight because i had the same issue today with the exact same wing folding in.

I was flying about 2km away from me and about 200m high at my farm.

The drone was returning to home when the image looked like the drone was tumbling down, i then got a black screen for about 5 seconds.

The drone then came back online and continued to fly back and i noticed a big drop in altitude however the drone was returning.

When the drone returned i noticed a few scratches and marks on the battery and the propellors.

I lined them up and it looked like the same arm on the left folded in during flight however somehow recovered itself.

Super weird and wondering how this could happen being so high in the sky besides a bird attacking the drone.

I wasn't actually recording the flight during the time of the incident so not sure how to find out what happened.

Wow... Would be interested to see what happened here! You mean the drone tumbled down and recovered and continued home! That is super impressive! My guess is it clipped a telephone/power line or a bird strike.

The video and logs should be on the SD card. Let's see it when you recover it so we can all learn

djjordans5 · Oct 15, 2017

Montypaks said:
Wow... Would be interested to see what happened here! You mean the drone tumbled down and recovered and continued home! That is super impressive! My guess is it clipped a telephone/power line or a bird strike.

The video and logs should be on the SD card. Let's see it when you recover it so we can all learn

Well to be honest, I don’t really know what happened as I wasn’t recording.

I was 200m high so powerlines are out of the question. I’m beginning to think it may have been a bird strike but yeah i saw a tumble on the video on my phone, had a black screen for a.bit then it came back online and was coming back.

Then when it was back I found the scratches.

djjordans5 · Oct 15, 2017

djjordans5 said:
Well to be honest, I don’t really know what happened as I wasn’t recording.

I was 200m high so powerlines are out of the question. I’m beginning to think it may have been a bird strike but yeah i saw a tumble on the video on my phone, had a black screen for a.bit then it came back online and was coming back.

Then when it was back I found the scratches.

It landed perfectly fine where I took off so the only way I knew was the scratches on the drone itself

Qoncussion · Oct 15, 2017

Montypaks said:
...The video and logs should be on the SD card. Let's see it when you recover it so we can all learn

No logs on the SD card. There are two logs: 1) in a .txt file on the device (phone/tablet), 2) on the Mavic's internal SD, accessible via DJI Assistant.

Lapeer20m · Oct 15, 2017

Goodpeopledrone said:
That's my concern with wraps. They unstick and end up in the rotors.

I had another guy tell me this in person.

I thought it was odd as I try to read up on every mavic crash here in the forum and have yet to read about this causing any crashes.

Montypaks · Oct 16, 2017

Lapeer20m said:
I had another guy tell me this in person.

I thought it was odd as I try to read up on every mavic crash here in the forum and have yet to read about this causing any crashes.

I really doubt this will cause a crash! I wouldn't worry about it