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Replacing Lost Drone?

Desert Sky

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Three days ago I flew my Air 2 out over a deep canyon. Three minutes out, it fell out of clear airspace into the canyon. Obviously a mechanical, software, or firmware problem. Unfortunately the Find My Drone function failed, showing the drone 5 miles away and nowhere near where I was flying. We searched the canyon with no success.

I have DJI Care Refresh insurance, but they want to have the drone in their hands before replacing it. Has anyone had experience replacing a lost drone? How does DJI handle this situation? Any help will be appreciated.
 
Three days ago I flew my Air 2 out over a deep canyon. Three minutes out, it fell out of clear airspace into the canyon. Obviously a mechanical, software, or firmware problem. Unfortunately the Find My Drone function failed, showing the drone 5 miles away and nowhere near where I was flying. We searched the canyon with no success.

I have DJI Care Refresh insurance, but they want to have the drone in their hands before replacing it. Has anyone had experience replacing a lost drone? How does DJI handle this situation? Any help will be appreciated.

The Best way is to submit a claim knowing that DJI will not replace your drone but that you may get a small Percentage discount off of another Air 2 and in doing so they will send you a link to purchase just the Drone itself.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Air 2 In the Rain and Float on Water.
 
Three days ago I flew my Air 2 out over a deep canyon. Three minutes out, it fell out of clear airspace into the canyon. Obviously a mechanical, software, or firmware problem. Unfortunately the Find My Drone function failed, showing the drone 5 miles away and nowhere near where I was flying. We searched the canyon with no success.

I have DJI Care Refresh insurance, but they want to have the drone in their hands before replacing it. Has anyone had experience replacing a lost drone? How does DJI handle this situation? Any help will be appreciated.
You say obviously, I say not. It is obviously Not a software or firmware problem. I can think of many reasons this would happen and none of them are obvious but most of them could point easily to a OE situation. Simple thing is you were flying where you Knew you had a good chance of losing your aircraft had anything go wrong. But that was a decision you took upon yourself, knowing that had anything like this happen then throw the refresh out the window...but let's move away from that.....

Next would be logs, there are a good hundred posts on here in just a month to tell you how to post those here for the folks to look over them to tell you 99% what happened. DJI will want these logs as well, but best to have both take a look. From there if indeed NOT a hardware/factory problem, DJI will more than likely offer you a discount on a replacement. From there you will want to contact them on your refresh program to have it attached to the replacement aircraft....best of luck. :)
 
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I'll contact DJI and see what they say... hopefully get a replacement or lower cost on another Air 2. Where can I get drone insurance that covers an un-recovered drone?
 
I am with Coverdrone In the UK don’t know if they are in the US although I believe State Farm is popular in the US.
Coverdrone will cover loss, theft & damage so obviously you don’t have to recover it :)
 
I'll contact DJI and see what they say... hopefully get a replacement or lower cost on another Air 2. Where can I get drone insurance that covers an un-recovered drone?
State Farm will write a rider for Personal Articles Policy...available in most states..not in CA for sure, believe some issue in TX. Talk to a agent for details. Personal Articles Policy - State Farm® Reports are around $60 a year for most consumer drones. The agent will ask you for a receipt for your drone so the insurance is priced properly. Once you’ve paid your premium you’re good to go.
 
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Three days ago I flew my Air 2 out over a deep canyon. Three minutes out, it fell out of clear airspace into the canyon. Obviously a mechanical, software, or firmware problem. Unfortunately the Find My Drone function failed, showing the drone 5 miles away and nowhere near where I was flying. We searched the canyon with no success.

I have DJI Care Refresh insurance, but they want to have the drone in their hands before replacing it. Has anyone had experience replacing a lost drone? How does DJI handle this situation? Any help will be appreciated.
If I recall correctly, there was a recent thread on the forum where a gentleman lost his drone - possibly in the water - due to what seemed to be a sudden power loss. Long story short, he was able to get a replacement copter and battery under warranty from DJI after sending them the logs from his flight app, and I believe he posted them here as well, and those that know how to correctly read them thought it was a sudden power failure. This would only apply if you were still under the one year warranty of course, but it could be worth posting the logs here for others to look at.

Does anyone recall the thread I mentioned, or am I having a moment here? :rolleyes:
 
If I recall correctly, there was a recent thread on the forum where a gentleman lost his drone - possibly in the water - due to what seemed to be a sudden power loss. Long story short, he was able to get a replacement copter and battery under warranty from DJI after sending them the logs from his flight app, and I believe he posted them here as well, and those that know how to correctly read them thought it was a sudden power failure. This would only apply if you were still under the one year warranty of course, but it could be worth posting the logs here for others to look at.

Does anyone recall the thread I mentioned, or am I having a moment here? :rolleyes:
You are not having a moment ;) can’t find the tread tough
 
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If I recall correctly, there was a recent thread on the forum where a gentleman lost his drone - possibly in the water - due to what seemed to be a sudden power loss. Long story short, he was able to get a replacement copter and battery under warranty from DJI after sending them the logs from his flight app, and I believe he posted them here as well, and those that know how to correctly read them thought it was a sudden power failure. This would only apply if you were still under the one year warranty of course, but it could be worth posting the logs here for others to look at.

Does anyone recall the thread I mentioned, or am I having a moment here? :rolleyes:
concur, don't remember...so many threads on the log gurus. this it? Drone water crash video & how DJI handled it...
 
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Desert Sky, consider making one more search for your drone, but using a different method than before. Like you, I once spent fruitless hours using "Find my drone," which had me searching an ever-changing area.

Much more reliable is to use the log that tracked your entire flight with thousands of data points. This file should reside on the phone or tablet you used to control your drone. You can take this file and overlay it on Google Maps or Google Earth as described here: DJI Flight Log Viewer. A much longer treatment of the process is here: Mavic Flight Log Retrieval and Analysis Guide.

In my case, I was able to see my entire flight on Google Maps, and gave considerable attention to my flight's last few seconds. Also, by using the history feature in Google maps, I viewed the end of this flight superimposed on varying imagery shot in different seasons and light conditions across years of time. This allowed me to identify the particular tree--out of thousands--that held my drone. This knowledge allowed me to recover the drone.

Your nemises are more likely rocks than trees, but the same process might work for you.

Good luck!
 
As in post #11, look at your flight right in the app. The flight record is there and will show the flight on the satellite map from beginning to end. Should be able to find it there.
E0591894-F0C8-4545-A9BE-BA8C46023AFE.png
 
Thanks so much for your help with this... and sharing these fine ideas. I have sent the flight data to DJI and hope that they can get me another drone. The idea to use the actual flight record is a good one. The issue with this crash is that when the drone fell out of open airspace it lost RC when it was still falling farther into the canyon so the final gps reading was probably taken in the air on it's way down. I'll wait to find out how DJI responds, then may go down the canyon again and search for the drone with the full flight log. I'll let you all how this gets resolved... and thanks again for your help.
 
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Here is a question: How can I view the flight record without an online service like AirData? If I am out of internet I'd like to use the flight record along with Find My Drone.
 
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Here is a question: How can I view the flight record without an online service like AirData? If I am out of internet I'd like to use the flight record along with Find My Drone.
Open Fly, click profile, click more, click the record you want to open. Will show route with all telemetry. Do not need drone or remote, all in app. From there you can upload to the cloud so you can view on any device.
 
Good news. DJI was quite prompt with their communications. I sent them the video and flight data. They then told me that the crash was covered by warranty as it was a failure of the obstacle avoidance system... so they sent me another drone. My hunch at this point is that the drone was hit by a bird. Beyond that, I am practicing using Google Maps and Gaia, plus my flight record to recover the drone. The simplest way is to get the last gps point of the flight and input it into these maps, then navigate to that. I found the flight record that is available on DJI Fly > Profile > More. It shows the map of the flight, but I have yet to find the gps points. Any ideas on where these may be in Profile?
 

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