Yeh thought I would share my horror story with the world right here before Christmas. I recently purchased a Mavic mini from Best Buy online and after only having it for four days it lost signal while flying directly overhead and took off without me being able to regain control. Once I lost signal to my iPhone I could not get the drone to turn around it flew out of sight and entered fail-safe mode and started to return home. The only problem was I had no clue that’s what it was doing nor where it was at. I thought I could see it off in the distance and tried to steer it back toward me. However I made a mistake of touching the joystick and caused the mini to miss home point and crash in the lake. I sent the drone in for repair or replacement thinking DJI would either fix my drone or send me a new one since it lost connection while directly overhead and all I had was a blank screen saying aircraft disconnected to fly with. Well i was dead wrong in thinking DJI would fix or replace the problem. My final offer was 15% off the price of a new drone. Ive been battling it out with DJI for over a month now and all the want to do is point at the last few minutes of flight and joystick controls which show in the telemetry data it crashing in the lake. It is evident to me now that DJI will spin and manipulate the data to their favor and once they have your drone what do you have to go off of. The finer details of flight are saved on the drone itself and now I have no drone, nor remote, and no leg to stand on. I tried to get the better business bureau involved and they soaked up DJI reasoning like a sponge, and much like DJI really could care less what I had to say. This is not my first drone, I had a phantom 3 for nearly a year and never had any problems such as this. Everything appeared to still be working on the drone when I sent it in but it kept displaying a navigation error and would not let me take off. I’ve asked them several times to just send me my drone and remote back but I can’t even get them to do that as of yet. Wish I’d known DJI was going to be so difficult to deal with cause I could of just returned it back to Best Buy. But now since they’ve had it for over a month now I’m screwed on that end as well. May wanna think twice before giving one of these to someone you care about for Christmas because I had only a couple days of flight and over a month of headache and run around with only an invoice now to show for. Thanks DJI!
Mavic mini lost connection while flying, total loss, 4 days old, no help from DJI.
- Thread starter Will Owsley
- Start date
- Joined
- May 25, 2017
- Messages
- 8,476
- Reactions
- 7,963
- Age
- 62
Sorry to hear of your loss.
You say you made the mistake of moving the joystick etc, but this doesn't stop RTH failsafe, does it ?
It should still keep coming, unless you direct it in a bad way and take it further afield etc.
It should regain signal and control during its RTH procedure.
I know you have the prior drone flying experience, and DJI familiarity with the P3, but there are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there that get MM's, other DJI drones, other makes of drones, when they lose them simply due to not doing enough due diligence before first flight, and a lack of understanding how these machines work best / safest.
Even the mini does have its little quirks, as demonstrated on this very forum.
I take it you didn't bother with Care Refresh.
Get it all back, there may be parts you can use down the track . . . you can get another aircraft / battery reasonable enough cost (if they are yet available as a body only ?) and keep flying the mini.
You say you made the mistake of moving the joystick etc, but this doesn't stop RTH failsafe, does it ?
It should still keep coming, unless you direct it in a bad way and take it further afield etc.
It should regain signal and control during its RTH procedure.
I know you have the prior drone flying experience, and DJI familiarity with the P3, but there are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there that get MM's, other DJI drones, other makes of drones, when they lose them simply due to not doing enough due diligence before first flight, and a lack of understanding how these machines work best / safest.
Even the mini does have its little quirks, as demonstrated on this very forum.
I take it you didn't bother with Care Refresh.
Get it all back, there may be parts you can use down the track . . . you can get another aircraft / battery reasonable enough cost (if they are yet available as a body only ?) and keep flying the mini.
Algebruh_m8
Active Member
I'm sorry for your Mavic loss although I hope you learned how the Mini works and familiarize yourself with its features and fail-safe options. This would've been avoidable if you had read the manual or watched a video about how to use it. I'm not entirely blaming you for the crash but if you knew that the failsafe RTH was in place and didn't move the sticks it seemed like it would've been fine. I do hope you can get your mini repaired or get a new one. If so take some advice and watch a couple of videos about flying the drone and how to use its features. Trust me, when I ordered my Mavic 2 Pro I nonstopped watched videos about it. I know you and I are different but its easily the best thing you can do to watch videos about the drone as it can save your Mini and money. Take care and hope to see you flying safely and with more knowledge next time! 
Algebruh_m8
Active Member
Also if possible is there a way you can post your flight log to see exactly what happened throughout your flight?
Prismatic
Well-Known Member
I feel your pain: I also once lost control and as a result crashed my drone.
Is it possible that you launched without getting a good GPS fix? The behavior you describe can happen if there's a "stale" home point that hasn't been updated yet for this flight. What really happened after RTH kicked in is unknown.
But with respect, you should have known better, and I mean exactly that. You did not sufficiently understand the device. The mysteries of RTH are explained in the documentation, including the GPS requirements. If you didn't understand these important topics, you should have. DJI's response shouldn't be a surprise.
Last edited:
Will not judge to hard ... after all you haven't (yet) supplied any flight log, so everything can only be on speculation basis.
Your case have though nearly all ingredients from all the other so called fly aways we have seen here lately on the forum involving Mini's ...
-Loosing connection with the AC located straight overhead ... did you position your antennas correctly for flying there?
-AC flew out of sight once disconnected ... before RTH were initiated? ... On what altitude were you flying, wind conditions, was it a "blow away"?
-Once RTH initiated due to lost connection & it missed the HP ... did you have enough sat count before take off, were the HP recorded correctly? (touching the sticks would not make the RTH procedure miss a correct recorded HP)
If these three above points in fact can be possible reasons for the AC to end up in the lake ... then you didn't have enough knowledge to take off yet & it's again a clear pilot error.
If you still have the logs in your iPhone please post them for further analyse ... it's a lot of really good analysts here in the forum that can shime in & break down the flight in it's pieces & pinpoint the most likely reason.
Your case have though nearly all ingredients from all the other so called fly aways we have seen here lately on the forum involving Mini's ...
-Loosing connection with the AC located straight overhead ... did you position your antennas correctly for flying there?
-AC flew out of sight once disconnected ... before RTH were initiated? ... On what altitude were you flying, wind conditions, was it a "blow away"?
-Once RTH initiated due to lost connection & it missed the HP ... did you have enough sat count before take off, were the HP recorded correctly? (touching the sticks would not make the RTH procedure miss a correct recorded HP)
If these three above points in fact can be possible reasons for the AC to end up in the lake ... then you didn't have enough knowledge to take off yet & it's again a clear pilot error.
If you still have the logs in your iPhone please post them for further analyse ... it's a lot of really good analysts here in the forum that can shime in & break down the flight in it's pieces & pinpoint the most likely reason.
Launching without GPS, usually isn't a big issue as the drone will record a home point as soon as it gains good GPS reception, and that would usually be close enough to the launch point.
Stale home point?
When you power off the drone, any home point evaporates, when you power up again, there is no home point until GPS is regained.
DJI are only ever going to replace a drone if it can be shown that the incident was caused by a DJI issue.
Losing signal can easily happen with the drone straight up.
Because of signal/antenna geometry, directly overhead is the worst orientation for maintaining good signal.
Losing signal should not cause loss of the drone as it's programmed to RTH.
It's not easy to understand what happened in your case as the description has a number of points that don't make sense.
It would be necessary to see the recorded flight data to understand what actually happened.
I wouldn't agree with that comment as I've seen plenty of cases where DJI have replaced drones where there is evidence of a DJI issue.
I've also seen cases where they have made a mistake in their assessment.
Some members have been successful in having DJI change their minds by pointing out things that the data whisperers here have identified.
It might be that DJI are correct in their assessment, but it's possible that they have made a mistake.
You can get an independent assessment here to get an idea of whether DJI are right or not.
John MacAulay
Well-Known Member
Sorry for the loss of your new mini, very disappointing.
If you post your flight data from your phone here, some of the experts may be able to determine exactly what happened during your flight. This may also help in your discussions with DJI if it can be determined that it was in fact a malfunction of some type with the aircraft. Good luck.
If you post your flight data from your phone here, some of the experts may be able to determine exactly what happened during your flight. This may also help in your discussions with DJI if it can be determined that it was in fact a malfunction of some type with the aircraft. Good luck.
PhantomFandom
Well-Known Member
It is very difficult to point blame at either DJI or you, without seeing the flight logs. Always download the flight logs before starting any case with DJI. Know what the true cause of the incident was before claiming that DJI should take responsibility.
Losing signal between the remote and the drone in itself is not a warranty claim issue. If the drone would have successfully executed a RTH, but was interrupted by the pilot then that also is not a DJI warranty claim.
If you can post your flight logs, it would go a long way towards determining what really happened.
In any case, as was mentioned by a few people already, there is no such thing as too much research or too much familiarity with your equipment. It seems that at the very least, you were not fully aware of exactly how the MM works.
Losing signal between the remote and the drone in itself is not a warranty claim issue. If the drone would have successfully executed a RTH, but was interrupted by the pilot then that also is not a DJI warranty claim.
If you can post your flight logs, it would go a long way towards determining what really happened.
In any case, as was mentioned by a few people already, there is no such thing as too much research or too much familiarity with your equipment. It seems that at the very least, you were not fully aware of exactly how the MM works.
Prismatic
Well-Known Member
I stand corrected. I was sure I had read of cases where that was an issue. Perhaps I registered an uninformed guess as a fact at some point.
In any case, I think the OP chose to fly without sufficient understanding, and that figured heavily in the outcome.
OP Should have re-initiated the RTH after touching the sticks. Then it would’ve come back to the home point again, safely. Panic caused this accident. Many more to come, sorry to say.
Unless flight logs are supplied, everything is speculation and what the OP remembered of the incident, which might not be accurate. I guess he didn’t have Care Refresh.
My experience with DJI support has mostly been positive. 1 crashed drone (replaced under care refresh), 2 faulty batteries (were still under warranty).
My experience with DJI support has mostly been positive. 1 crashed drone (replaced under care refresh), 2 faulty batteries (were still under warranty).
Gilbertlopez1
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2019
- Messages
- 77
- Reactions
- 56
Jesus, Ive Never Seen So Many Fly-Away’s As WithThis Mavic Mini, But I Must Say. Probably At Least 95% Are Pilot Error. MUST READ THE MANUAL... And Understand What Your Reading, Especially Where RTH Is Concerned. MUST Have It Set To Return To Home In Settings, And Make Sure It Records It Before Takeoff. Wouldn’t Hurt To Also Do A GPS Orientation Calibration Before First Flight Also. These Mentioned Are A MUST DO...Thanks...
Affordable, small, powerful machine, first-time flyer, ingredients for disaster. Practice practice practice. There is cause for concern that some of this is happening to seasoned Pilots. Live and learn, preferably from others mistakes.
Perhaps you mean a compass calibration?
You cannot calibrate the GPS and a compass calibration is completely unrelated to the GPS and its functioning.
Prismatic
Well-Known Member
there’S somethinG verY odD abouT youR writinG stylE, buT i can’T quitE puT mY fingeR oN iT. ?
Ok I got all my data uploaded to Airdata.com just not sure how to attach the files for everyone to see. Their definitely was some major issues before the crash because it said not enough force/esc error over one hundred times before it crashed. I would be happy to post if I could figure out how.
If you post Airdata, make sure you tick to share or no-one can see the actual data.
Or you could go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report on the flight data.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
The Not Enough Force messages might not be significant.
It's being reported as a common false alarm for many Mini flights.
Similar threads
