So... my Mavic decided to go rogue today and auto-land into a forest. I was flying off a local river getting some photos a couple thousand feet away from my location. No issues with connectivity or video feed. I turned it around to bring it back and noticed that it had been drifting higher, up around 300 feet.

I gave left stick down and it automatically went into a forced landing mode. I attempted to cancel the auto-land on screen but the red X was greyed out and wouldn't respond. Full left stick up wouldn't stop the landing. I was able to maneuver horizontally but not vertically. I realized it wasn't going to make it back to me without landing in the water so I got it over some trees before it finally went down and crashed.

Luckily I was able to recover it from the woods... It actually held up quite well. Broken prop but the gimbal seems to be alright. Thoughts? I have insurance with State Farm but this seems to be a technical issue that I hope DJI will own up to. VPS issues I assume.

DAT: https://www.dropbox.com/s/400ze0elik1ot3w/DJI_ASSISTANT_EXPORT_FILE_2017-03-25_16-21-32.DAT?dl=0
txt.: http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/9PKX6ISI40DN47C9QX11/

Hi 762, sorry to hear of your crash, but at least you got and it looks ok , had a look at your PH logs nothing much on them , I thought I might see some cell deviation but they were all fine, you say it was climbing gradually was it flying into the sun by any chance, if this was the case then you would have had OA warning, but that shouldn't force land the AC.
To cancel force landing you can just push switch into sport mode, this will cancel force landing, but that's something someone here discovered by chance or trial and error, it's not in the Manual.
I think you should sync your flight to dji cloud if you haven't already, and get dji to take a look at the dat file, that might tell if there was some sort of malfunction.
But it's time they sorted out force landing cancellation. Thanks for posting , hope you get sorted.

Good luck

Switching to Sport mode will cancel any current mode and return control to the sticks . Unless something strange was going on but should be the 1st thing you try when it is not responding.

Would the pause button cancel force landing?

NoSale Posted at 2017-3-25 15:15
Would the pause button cancel force landing?

No unfortunately not at the minute, but it would be nice if it could.

We've had a long discussion over on Mavic Pilots and as somebody else previously stated, switching to Sport mode is the only way to cancel auto-landing. Up until the most recent firmware upgrade, left stick up would cancel the landing. Everybody seems to suggest turning off "landing protection" in settings.

I'm hoping that DJI will honor warranty on my Mavic. Shouldn't be held responsible for faulty hardware readings causing the force landing to occur.

fans2bf7b762 Posted at 2017-3-27 12:01
We've had a long discussion over on Mavic Pilots and as somebody else previously stated, switching to Sport mode is the only way to cancel auto-landing. Up until the most recent firmware upgrade, left stick up would cancel the landing. Everybody seems to suggest turning off "landing protection" in settings.

I'm hoping that DJI will honor warranty on my Mavic. Shouldn't be held responsible for faulty hardware readings causing the force landing to occur.

I've seen this happen to about dozen people. I can't imagine what the real number is. But when you change such a core feature on the users your going to get a lot of problems. And I feel as though DJI should step up to the plate on this one. You don't change something like that without letting the user know. Especially if that user has been using it the same way for months now.  Makes no sense in my opinion.

Looking at the flight path I noticed Conway-Horry County Airport in the distance.  I'm wondering if you flew into a NFZ which caused it into Forced Landing mode.  Does the Mavic force land when flown into a NFZ?

fans9844cbdd Posted at 2017-3-27 16:47
Looking at the flight path I noticed Conway-Horry County Airport in the distance.  I'm wondering if you flew into a NFZ which caused it into Forced Landing mode.  Does the Mavic force land when flown into a NFZ?

Yes it does.

My takeoff point was closer to the airport than my flight path. If it had been a NFZ, it wouldn't have allowed takeoff. That location is along the border of the 5 five radius around the Conway airport. My landing issue was tied to faulty readings from the downward facing VPS.

You can check out the built-in NFZs from DJI here: http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc?w=&www=v1

Please let us know if you file with State Farm and if it gets covered.

Most airport controlled airspace (especially the 5-mile zone around Class D airports - and I think Conway is a Class D) is NOT a no-fly-zone and should only give you a warning.  NFZs are special cases of highly restricted airspace.
If you do travel into a NFZ, the Mavik will initiate autoland within a few seconds.  And I don't know if it can even be aborted with the Sport Mode proceedure.

Just an update... I sent this off to DJI for repair and it was received last Tuesday. Haven't received any other updates since then. Guess the wait time is in the weeks currently?

fans2bf7b762 Posted at 2017-4-11 13:23
Just an update... I sent this off to DJI for repair and it was received last Tuesday. Haven't received any other updates since then. Guess the wait time is in the weeks currently?

Maybe they will err on your side, they have just introduced new firmware to counteract this sort of thing happening.
Good luck..

I have tested firmware 550, hold the left stick (mode 2)/ right stick (mode 1) down 100% while the Mavic in high attributes won't trigger the auto land any more. So hope that DJI will replace your Mavic under warranty for you. Good luck

Just got word that DJI will be repairing my Mavic under warranty after analyzing the flight data. My only concern is no electronics or sensors were included in the repair sheet. The defective readings from the bottom-facing VPS was the initial cause of my problems.

Back Right Motor Arm         1        19.00        19.00
Middle Frame                 1        4.00        4.00
Top Cover                         1        1.00        1.00
Service Charge                 2        65.00/H        130.00

fans2bf7b762 Posted at 2017-4-18 09:55
Just got word that DJI will be repairing my Mavic under warranty after analyzing the flight data. My only concern is no electronics or sensors were included in the repair sheet. The defective readings from the bottom-facing VPS was the initial cause of my problems.

Back Right Motor Arm         1        19.00        19.00

My only concern is no electronics or sensors were included in the repair sheet.

I wouldn't worry about it; even though they told you that they're "repairing" it, chances are you're going to get back an entirely different aircraft anyway. At least that has been the pattern for a while now.