Good day folks,

During my last holiday I lost my Mavic Air while taking some footage on a cliff, it was a very sad experience as it took all the footage that I had so far of my holiday and I was left without the drone from the remainder of my brake.

The unpleseant experience involved my Mavic Air deciding to yaw right and crash to a cliff a drown on what I believe was an attempt of an obstacle avoidance manouver, not sensing the cliff on its side, where it would not respond to my inputs to avoid said crash.

I've submitted a case #CAS-1881904-G1M2L3, I provided all the data requested between flight records, logs, video, etc and after about two weeks I got a response today saying that it was my fault. You can see much more details about the whole story on the case for sure but I completely disagree with the accident being my fault at all. The drone was not too far away from me, line of sight, I had no lost of signal and if it had responded to my full stick up and let yaw the accident would have been avoided. In fact, the acciednt wouldn't have happened at all if the drone woulnd't have devided to slowly yaw to the right in the first place. I have no idea why it did that, the only thing I can imagine is that it was on a obstacle avoidance manouver taking the control away from me, but as I said before, since the device doens't have side sensors  it caused the crash. I actually have my wife as a witness, as she saw the whole thing happening, saw the drone drifing to the right and clearly not responding to my inputs to avoid the situation.

I'll ask you to please have the logs reviewed once again, I'll be happy to provide any other information/log as required.

I've been a DJI customer for a while, I had a Phantom before where I had no issues at all, went to Xiaomi for a while and came back to DJI as I love the Air proposition, the package is just brilliant. I spent a fortune on the Fly More Package and even invested on the DJI Refresh Care for a piece of mind before going on my holidays, as you can imagine this situation where I had nothing to do with it and the extra money spent on the warranty doesn't even cover me at all, it's heart breaking. I will not be able to afford another unit, so please I ask you to review the information once again to find the actual facts of the accident and help me to get back on the air.

Your help is much appreciated and I thank you for your time and effort on this case in advance.

Kind regards,
Ramiro.

Ramiro, we are so sorry for your loss, per the data analysis, the accident was caused by pilot error:
Flight record:04/06/2018 18:32:08(GMT +8)
1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode and responded to the pilot’s control well;
2. T=04:43, H=-13.8 m, D=21.2 m, the aircraft crashed with obstacles when spinning anticlockwise and ascending; Before the incident, the pilot put fully throttle stick upward and yaw stick to the left.
Conclusion: Pilot stick command error.
Per the flight records, the aircraft was under your control and the accident has nothing to do with the product itself, therefore, the warranty cannot be provided, thanks for your understanding.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-6-15 03:17
Ramiro, we are so sorry for your loss, per the data analysis, the accident was caused by pilot error:
Flight record:04/06/2018 18:32:08(GMT +8)
1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode and responded to the pilot’s control well;

That shows UP, not any yaw command.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-6-15 03:17
Ramiro, we are so sorry for your loss, per the data analysis, the accident was caused by pilot error:
Flight record:04/06/2018 18:32:08(GMT +8)
1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode and responded to the pilot’s control well;

HI DJI Mindy,

I'm very disappointed by this report as it doesn't tell the true story. Regardless of my input where I was trying to actually save the drone from running into a cliff, do you see why it starter moving sideways to the right???   That's what caused the crash.

I was actually decending with the drone up until it decided to stop responding to my input and yaw to the right.

Do you log what the drone decides to do or only my input on the control? It almost sounds like you don't have all the actions leading up to the accident and this is very serious, how can you perform an analysis with half of the information?

How can I or any other user prove a system failure if there's no logs of it trying to do an obstacle maneuver and failing catastrophically at it costing me a very expensive drone.

I'm seriously disappointed if this is going to be DJI's final answer, I insist that if the drone reacted to my inputs it would have been fine, the fact that it did not react to my FULL UP and FULL to the left it exactly what cause the issue, so the only error here is the drone not reacting to the pilot's input and thus this should be covered under either warranty or the also expensive DJI Refresh Care that I purchased.

Please escalate this if necessary, I would like to speak to someone over the phone if possible and further discuss, you have my details.

Thank you
Ramiro  

Ramiro, please kindly find the below pictures, we can see that the GPS signal is weaker and the satellite changed from 20 to 8 due to the environment changes, that's the reason you may feel the drone a little drift.
From the second screenshot, we can see that the satellite is 8 and there is stick input on the up and left, no right moving was found. The performance might be affected by the environment. From the current info we collected, we're sorry that we cannot offer you warranty service.
BTW, it is not recommended to fly near the cliff, flight safety is always the first priority.

DJI Susan Posted at 2018-6-15 23:54
Ramiro, please kindly find the below pictures, we can see that the GPS signal is weaker and the satellite changed from 20 to 8 due to the environment changes, that's the reason you may feel the drone a little drift.
From the second screenshot, we can see that the satellite is 8 and there is stick input on the up and left, no right moving was found. The performance might be affected by the environment. From the current info we collected, we're sorry that we cannot offer you warranty service.
BTW, it is not recommended to fly near the cliff, flight safety is always the first priority.

Hi DJI Susan,

I think we are getting somewhere now but there's still a few issues with your statement.

I did not "feel a little drift", the drone stopped responding to my inputs and started moving to the right in a perfect side-ways movement. It doesn't matter where I'm flying the drone I expect it to respond to my inputs at all times, why would it lose signal on an open space with literally no interference at all, you can't be more outdoors than that.

Also, I still don't see an explanation as of why if I had full stick up and yaw to the left the drone still crashed to the right and also, do you have any records of the drone moving swiftly to any of the directions mentioned?? Did the drone move very quickly UP and RIGHT? If it did, then we wouldn't been having this conversation, the pilot would have saved the drone from crashing.

Please investigate this further and have this escalated, I want to have a conversation as I feel that there's a lack of proof here and just "an opinion". I fully respect the different points of view, but in this case I think DJI is not being fair. There's clearly information missing or details are not being considered. We need to find out why the drone moved to the right, and not just a little bit, I had a very safe and prudent distance from the cliff, it took the drone a few seconds moving right to hit the wall so it wasn't like it was a sudden movement, I had more than enough room for my maneuver and it would have been perfectly fine if it was up to me (the pilot).

If the drone decides to randomly start a right yaw causing the crash, it's safe to say that it's the drones fault, not mine.

If the drone stops responding to my input which leads to the crash, it's safe to say that it's the drones fault, not mine.

We have now found that the drone my have lost a few GPS satellites, but it still had signal (weak). Why would this happen on a perfectly good open space with nothing but mother nature for miles?? This is a technical fault, not mine. Losing GPS signal, although it still had signal will cause the drone to yaw to the right for a few seconds and stop responding to my input??  Then it's absolutely the drone fault and not mine.

Again, I please ask you to escalate this, I would like to speak to someone over the phone. I don't see any valid proof to put the blame on me, if anything we have proof that the drone lost signal on a perfectly good open space and did not respond to my inputs. So we have two technical errors from the drone causing the crash, which should be covered on the warranty and I hope you can send me a replacement soon as it has been a few weeks already.

Thank you for your support,
Ramiro

TVRamiro Posted at 2018-6-16 02:19
Hi DJI Susan,

I think we are getting somewhere now but there's still a few issues with your statement.

Hi Ramiro, I'd like to express my sincere sorry for all the inconvenience caused. I do understand your concern, it has been escalated to the superior team, we will have someone to contact you soon. Appreciate your patience.

Hi Diana,

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Looking forward to hear from you folks soon.

Cheers,
Ramiro

TVRamiro Posted at 2018-6-17 05:35
Hi Diana,

Thank you, I appreciate that.

You're welcome. If there is anything else we can assist you with, please feel free to let us know.

For references, upon escalation this case was sent to a separated team to get a second review which came back negative again, as 100% blame of the pilot.

Had numerous emails back and forth with the escalation team and I as a customer had to take it upon myself to do my own research with the information provided by support to prove that it wasn't my fault. Effectively, I was tasked to figure things myself and without any training become a DJI Support agent without getting paid for it, but eventually I was able to prove what I was saying from the very beginning and now a new drone will be sent under warranty.

Final report:


Flight record:04/06/2018 18:32:08(GMT +8)

1. The aircraft worked under GPS mode and responded to the pilot’s control well;

2. T=04:43, H=-13.8 m, D=21.2 m, the aircraft crashed with obstacles when drifting to the right due to GPS velocity data error;

3. Incident point: 54.3254358 -9.3467972



Conclusion: GPS velocity data error, warranty.”


My advise to you all, if you're truthful to the facts and it's not going through, take the time to go through the logs and review in detail each movement, go through a timeline and make your point. The system is not really 100% reliable as nothing guarantees that everything will be logged specially if we are talking about signal getting lost, etc... if there's no communication between drone and app or drone and controller, then no data will be sent or logged, so it's inherently a flawed system of generating evidence if the aircraft is lost.

If you don't have it, buy DJI Refresh Care. In this case it didn't help me because I could not recover the aircraft, but if you get it back at least you almost guarantee that it will be replaced at a small free almost no questions asked.

Anyways, happy with the result at the end of the day but it definitely took a lot of effort and time from my side, more than I would have expected. Hope this experience helps someone else along the way.

Cheers,
Ramiro

TVRamiro Posted at 2018-6-20 05:48
For references, upon escalation this case was sent to a separated team to get a second review which came back negative again, as 100% blame of the pilot.

Had numerous emails back and forth with the escalation team and I as a customer had to take it upon myself to do my own research with the information provided by support to prove that it wasn't my fault. Effectively, I was tasked to figure things myself and without any training become a DJI Support agent without getting paid for it, but eventually I was able to prove what I was saying from the very beginning and now a new drone will be sent under warranty.

Ramiro, glad to know the case was able to be warrantied in the end, thanks for your update, our repair center will help you with the next steps, hope the case will be sorted out soon.

Hello,

I've been trying to get into contact with DJI for days but I don't get any replies, hopefully someone could help me on here. My Mavic Mini crashed into sea water a few days ago and it has stopped working. I do not believe this was my fault. I was wondering if there was anyone on here who could do a quick analysis of my flight logs? Unfortunately I cannot access DJI assistant for further flight information as the drone won't power on and connect to my laptop but please find the data from the fly app on the two links provided. I would really appreciate if someone could do this for me, as this is my first drone and I was really enjoying the experience up until this happened and I really want to find out what went wrong, and what can be done about it.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ic03cOpAKpj-QpNMYhAUppOPSKPJtyGT?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Zke7xKiPpcO5lyLEdkF_yQDjk5guUxfD

The crash was my last flight on 9th April thank you

djiuser_bVgl9vnoUcEA Posted at 4-11 23:20
Hello,

I've been trying to get into contact with DJI for days but I don't get any replies, hopefully someone could help me on here. My Mavic Mini crashed into sea water a few days ago and it has stopped working. I do not believe this was my fault. I was wondering if there was anyone on here who could do a quick analysis of my flight logs? Unfortunately I cannot access DJI assistant for further flight information as the drone won't power on and connect to my laptop but please find the data from the fly app on the two links provided. I would really appreciate if someone could do this for me, as this is my first drone and I was really enjoying the experience up until this happened and I really want to find out what went wrong, and what can be done about it.

I managed to check your email record with the team, please do not keep sending email because it will refresh the email response time. We will inform the team to apply the data analysis for you as soon as possible. For the DJI Care Refresh service you mentioned in other posts, I have sent you PM, please check, thanks.

I was flying my Mavic Mini in the morning. Out of a sudden, my drone lost its signal even though it was only about 1 k.m away from me as the pilot flying.

djiuser_cWGdA3jhMnQH Posted at 3-24 12:04
I was flying my Mavic Mini in the morning. Out of a sudden, my drone lost its signal even though it was only about 1 k.m away from me as the pilot flying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khJY5cW34T8

AS U SEE THE DRONE WAS SUDDENLY NOT IN CONTROL AND IT KEPT GOING RIGHT BECAUSE OF THE BAD SIGNAL EVEN THOUGH IT WAS WITHIN 1 K.M RANGE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khJY5cW34T8

djiuser_cWGdA3jhMnQH Posted at 3-24 12:19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khJY5cW34T8

COPY PASTE LINK ON URL TO VIEW THIS RECORD

I'll suggest that you create your own case with support and do your own research with the logs, if you can prove that your input doesn't match the unit's path they you might have a chance to get it replaced.

By my own experience, they won't make it easy and push back unnecessarily to see if you back down. It's almost like they were paying the replacement out of their own pockets or something.

Don't be afraid to escalate to get some kind of human response.

did that