Need Help Lost Mavic (Ocean Crash)

[baddog]

To any who can help,

I was about 50-70 yards away from ocean, on the 3rd floor deck of a beach house, no obstruction at all. I was in the Outer Banks (OBX). My entire family walked down to the beach. Thought it would be nice to capture footage of th group before joining them.

I took off as usual, home point recorded, good GPS (10 sat. at take off, 15-16 sat. during the remains flight). Believe it or not, no high wind warnings which is unusual for the OBX. It was just a light coastal breeze about 70°, perfect weather, so I thought.

I made 2 passes and was attempting my final pass coming in from ocean, about 70 ft out. Wanted to fly from high up, ~170 ft then defend downward and move forward over family on beach then head back to the house.

Everything to that point was fine about 8 min. Into flight. No issues with anything. On my decent, I lost connection to the controller, not physically, just the signal. When I looked up to find the drone (VLOS), I caught a quick view of it as it was falling from the sky. I had no control what so ever. I tried RTH with no response. It was gone. I have video of the event but at the 8 minute mark the video freezes although there is another 45 to 60 seconds of video running but the view is frozen (no crash footage). I had 61% battery left according to log file (see attached)

The image shows the actual visual distance from deck to Mavic. Approximately 350 yards.

I am pretty certain DJI's response to any kind of Care Refresh claim will be denied but just looking for went wrong.

Any help or info would be appreciated.

 

[Simmo]

I would imagine that you would need to upload a flight log for anybody to comment??
DJI Flight Log Viewer

 

[baddog]

I would imagine that you would need to upload a flight log for anybody to comment??
DJI Flight Log Viewer

I did in the original post...??

 

[sar104]

There is no indication of any problem in the log file prior to the abrupt end. The disconnect was almost certainly caused by sudden failure (probably power failure) on the aircraft. That could have been hardware failure, or it could be that the battery was not properly seated. The latter seems less likely in this case since the aircraft does not appear to have been making any sudden maneuvers at the time.

DJI seem to be less eager to replace in the absence of a broken aircraft returned to them, and the refresh option requires the aircraft I think, but in this case I would push them quite hard since the log is very suggestive of hardware failure.

For a more detailed look at the status of the aircraft during that flight you could post the mobile device DAT file. It's possible that there could be further clues in there.

How to retrieve a V3.DAT from the tablet

 

[Simmo]

I did in the original post...??

I'm sorry baddog, I must have missed that in my first perusal..

 

[dewster]

I think DJI has a history of just giving you a discount on a new purchase if you cannot supply the drone.

Were there any birds in the area during flight? Seagulls can be pretty aggressive.

Wind is tricky. It’ll be calm at ground level and windy at altitude.

Did you have the VPS (Visual Positioning System) engaged when flying over water. I bet there’s a glitch in that system that causes those sudden death moments. I think most of the drops from the sky occur when flying over water with VPS engaged.

VPS=System Overload when flying over water or monochrome surfaces.

Think Windows’ Blue screen of death. Midflight reboot.

 

[sar104]

I think DJI has a history of just giving you a discount on a new purchase if you cannot supply the drone.

Were there any birds in the area during flight? Seagulls can be pretty aggressive.

Wind is tricky. It’ll be calm at ground level and windy at altitude.

Did you have the VPS (Visual Positioning System) engaged when flying over water. I bet there’s a glitch in that system that causes those sudden death moments. I think most of the drops from the sky occur when flying over water with VPS engaged.

VPS=System Overload when flying over water or monochrome surfaces.

Think Windows’ Blue screen of death. Midflight reboot.

Interesting possibilities, but I doubt that any of them played a part in this. A bird attack or strike would show up in the telemetry - the aircraft is not going to die of fright. Wind was around 10 mph out of the west at flight altitude. The VPS system was not in use at the the time - the aircraft was too high.

 

[baddog]

To any who can help,

I was about 50-70 yards away from ocean, on the 3rd floor deck of a beach house, no obstruction at all. I was in the Outer Banks (OBX). My entire family walked down to the beach. Thought it would be nice to capture footage of th group before joining them.

I took off as usual, home point recorded, good GPS (10 sat. at take off, 15-16 sat. during the remains flight). Believe it or not, no high wind warnings which is unusual for the OBX. It was just a light coastal breeze about 70°, perfect weather, so I thought.

I made 2 passes and was attempting my final pass coming in from ocean, about 70 ft out. Wanted to fly from high up, ~170 ft then defend downward and move forward over family on beach then head back to the house.

Everything to that point was fine about 8 min. Into flight. No issues with anything. On my decent, I lost connection to the controller, not physically, just the signal. When I looked up to find the drone (VLOS), I caught a quick view of it as it was falling from the sky. I had no control what so ever. I tried RTH with no response. It was gone. I have video of the event but at the 8 minute mark the video freezes although there is another 45 to 60 seconds of video running but the view is frozen (no crash footage). I had 61% battery left according to log file (see attached)

The image shows the actual visual distance from deck to Mavic. Approximately 350 yards.

I am pretty certain DJI's response to any kind of Care Refresh claim will be denied but just looking for went wrong.

Any help or info would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone for your quick and insightful reponses. I ran my log file thru DJI's log analyzer but info was pretty shallow in data. I could see basic info, speed, altitude, speed, but no wind info or detailed telemetry.

If anyone has any suggestions for a good tool for log file parsing, please let me know.

I do plan on contacting DJI and try to make claim and see what they offer for a solution. I will update this post with results of people are interested in outcome. I am still in OBX for another week, just droneless now, so sad...

Thanks again to all who replied.

 

[baddog]

Well as promised this was the response I got back from DJI support...Not happy but what else can I do but pay what they ask of I want to keep flying a Mavic Pro

For your claimed case CAS-1XXXXXXXXX2T5, we have already finished the analysis, and the result is as follows:
1. The aircraft worked in GPS mode during the flight;
2. The pilot pushed the pitch stick forward and pulled the throttle stick down, the aircraft descended and flew forward, then the flight record ended at T=07:49, H=18 m, D=331 m.
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 coupon for Mavic Pro without charger and remote:
Buy Mavic Pro Aircraft (Excludes Remote Controller and Battery Charger)
If you would like to take the offer, please reply email directly. And when you place an order, do you want to ship it to United States?
Should you have more questions, please feel free to let me know.
Best Regards,
Dora
DJI Tech Support
http://www.dji.com/