So, today, i was teaching my son how to fly the Mavic Air.  We had several successful flights, and were out having a good time.  Then on the final flight of the day, we flew out a good distance  (probably about 3000ft) and lost controller signal.  I initiated RTH so that the aircraft would return home.  During the RTH we got an error that said the forward and rear sensors were off.  I put the MA in sport mode and was rushing it home.  It got back and once it was about to land, I cancelled the RTH.  It was within 20 ft of me, and only about 15 ft off the ground.  I made another rookie pilot mistake, and did not go ahead and land and regain all of the sensors.  I had completely forgotten about the error about the sensors being off.  So we were flying around the yard and just enjoying watching it fly.  Then as we were about to bring it in, we were flying it toward us.  It suddenly veered left and up.  Then directly into the house.  at about 20mph.

The antennae are both broken, and the rear feet were dislodged.  The camera gimbal was also dislodged.  

This is completly pilot error, because I should have landed and regained all of my sensors before flying again.  I've already opened a repair case and it is on the way to DJI for repair/replacement.  I hope it is back in time for my trip to Atlanta next month.  But if it's not, I have nobody to blame but myself.  Another rookie mistake.  The only thing that I can take away from this was a teachable moment for my son.  He got to learn from my mistake.  He got to see first hand what happens when you get too comfortable and don't pay the proper attention to your craft.  I am hurt by the loss of my aircraft, but after the week that I've had, it's a small thing.  And in the end, it is just a material object, and I'll be flying again very soon.

I'm not looking for any extra analysis of the flight, or even any sympathy.  Just knew I could come here to share.

Fly safe pilots.  I've had my drone for 3 months, and have had 2 pilot error crashes.  The first time, I got lucky.  This time, not so much.  Repair is coming.  With each day, I learn more.  Some lessons are fun to learn.  Others are not.  This one was not.

Buy a hundred dollar tello and practice with that till you get better so you are not busting up an 800 dollar drone.

Sorry for your lost, hope you can get it fix soon and fly. I have the same issue and share with you.

Fistly let me commend you for taking responsibility for your actions some will just blame Dji or their drone, Sorry about the damage and hope you are back in the air soon.

Sorry to hear, 3-D. But I'd encourage you to stick with the Air - it's a great little craft.

Hey, we all make the occasional error. One day recently I was practising manoeuvring through young birch trees and needed to turn collision avoidance off as it was quite fidgety. Tiring of that, I let it have it's wings back and flew it off in to the wide open, then had it return at full pelt. But foolishly I'd forgotten to turn avoidance back on and it failed to brake fast enough when I took my hands of the sticks, and it flew straight into the same birch trees. It hit the sapling's branches, motors strained and stopped, and the little guy tumbled down to the ground. Picked it up - just some minor scratches on two props. Swapped to spare props, changed battery, and off again it goes. Only my ego was damaged.

I have to say, I think the little guy is exceptionally robust - but perhaps not against a wall... :-(

Ah, sad to hear. But don't be so hard on yourself.
Anyway, the obstacle sensing errors and crash could still be totally unrelated to eachother. It does sound weird that it suddenly took even if obstacle sensors were off.
If the messages were as below in yellow, and went away again, it was probably a gust of wind that temprarily caused your craft to tilt beyond the obstacle avoidance range.


It would still be interesting to take a look at the flight log, but I can imagine if you don't want to either way and wait for DJI's conclusion. There still is a posibility you couldn't have done anything about the crash.

Hello there. Thank you for sharing your experience. We apologize for what happened. Our engineers will do their best to fix your drone. Thank you for choosing DJI. If you need any help, feel free to approach us. We are here to help.

On RTH if Aircraft cannot make ground into the wind it will take the option to disable avoidance sensors, to increase speed , when it reaches homepoint ie above homepoint sensors will automatically come back on, once you switched to sport mode this will disable sensors , so it sounds like you didn’t go back to P mode, which meant sensors remained off, there is no need to land to reset avoidance sensors.

It’s a tough break, hopefully can be repaired without to much expense.

LoSBoL Posted at 2018-6-16 23:18
Ah, sad to hear. But don't be so hard on yourself.
Anyway, the obstacle sensing errors and crash could still be totally unrelated to eachother. It does sound weird that it suddenly took even if obstacle sensors were off.
If the messages were as below in yellow, and went away again, it was probably a gust of wind that temprarily caused your craft to tilt beyond the obstacle avoidance range.

If Mavic Air cannot reach RTH speed because it is flying into wind it will auto turn off OA increase it’s pitch to increase speed, it will then automatically turn back on OA when it reaches homepoint ie when it’s directly over head.

Oh man so very sorry to hear this.  I do hope you get it back very soon.  Tough loss.

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-6-17 04:06
If Mavic Air cannot reach RTH speed because it is flying into wind it will auto turn off OA increase it’s pitch to increase speed, it will then automatically turn back on OA when it reaches homepoint ie when it’s directly over head.

Yes, I know, definitely a plus for the MA in getting her back in moderate windy conditions.

You can see these messages pop up and out in normal flight outside RTH use as well when you are in windy conditions.

LoSBoL Posted at 2018-6-17 04:31
Yes, I know, definitely a plus for the MA in getting her back in moderate windy conditions.

You can see these messages pop up and out in normal flight outside RTH use as well when you are in windy conditions.

Yes it’s a good system for the wind, it was and still is a problem with Mavic Pro , many of these aircraft lost to the wind on RTH .The big plus for Mavic Air is it can trace it’s RTH home so obstacles won’t be in its way.

Sorry to hear this buddy. Hopefully you get your bird back soon enough for you trip.

Scoobywrx05 Posted at 2018-6-16 20:16
Buy a hundred dollar tello and practice with that till you get better so you are not busting up an 800 dollar drone.

Thought about it.  Decided that I didn't want to take that route.  I'll probably still get a Tello, but it will be for playing, not for practice to save the mavic.  I will stick with the Mavic and it will just force me to be more vigilant about how I fly.

Hope you get it fixed up or replaced for trip.

"It suddenly veered left and up.  Then directly into the house.  at about 20mph."


Hi 3-D,


Whilst I'm sorry for the loss / incident, please don't be this hard on yourself.


Yes, pilot error was definitely a factor here, but at the same time, the behaviour you quoted sounds like a combination of the yaw/roll error and dive bomb situation. The drone should've NEVER exhibited this behaviour on it's own. My guess is this is just another situation in a continually growing line of reported issues with the MA after the 0400 update.


I too just experienced the yaw and roll error on the second testing MA AC I picked up (now returned), as it started going out of control in a completely safe and interference-free area shortly after takeoff (roll to the left), and later yawing suddenly both left and right whilst taking a panning video on manual.


I have since grounded my original MA, and will not fly it again until DJI get's the act together and finally fix this debacle they've created. I cannot justify flying a drone that seems to have a mind of its own, and has the potential of flying into someone's house, or hitting an innocent bystandard.

I guess there is no harm with sending the flight logs to DJI and to phantom log upload to get second opinions.

I am very sorry for your crash and damage dear friend but would like to echo others here saying that things like that can happen and you should not be too critical with yourself! Take it as another lesson learned like I did with a serious crash that I had a while ago with my MA, purely pilot error as well. Luckily my one survived it in good shape (apart of the propellers) but could have been the opposite too. Nevertheless I would recommend to take the time analysing what precisely has happened, which will definitely help you in the future. hallmark007 has provided some good explanations already. You should not hesitate to ask for more here.

Just crashed mine into a tree.. fell 20ft onto the sidewalk and only 1ft away from grass... had active tracking on and I failed to pay attention to the height of my Mavic... one arm broken, 2 props, gimbal shroud cracked, and some other cracks and scratches...

Wish I purchased dji care but it was a rushed purchase immediately before a trip and I didn’t have internet where I went.... missed the 48hr timeframe.

Wonder what it’s gonna cost to fix..

Sorry for your mishap. No one is perfect but we must always remain aware of the status of our aircraft. Be thankful the only damage was to the Mavic.

Bummer deal. I will usually do RTH for most errors, especially with multiple errors. I of course am still learning so best to error on side of caution though I know most dont wanna stop until the battery is low.


I have bought the Tello since people I am with will get bored of watching my fly so to keep them busy and also so they don't end up crashing my Air...lol.

fans8cfca51a Posted at 2018-6-17 13:36
Just crashed mine into a tree.. fell 20ft onto the sidewalk and only 1ft away from grass... had active tracking on and I failed to pay attention to the height of my Mavic... one arm broken, 2 props, gimbal shroud cracked, and some other cracks and scratches...

Wish I purchased dji care but it was a rushed purchase immediately before a trip and I didn’t have internet where I went.... missed the 48hr timeframe.

Usually if camera is damaged, your repair bill will be high if no damage to camera then other parts of body are inexpensive.

hallmark007 Posted at 2018-6-17 13:50
Usually if camera is damaged, your repair bill will be high if no damage to camera then other parts of body are inexpensive.

The camera and gimbal look to be moving and operating just fine.  I was able to push the gimbal back into place and it functioned ok.  (as far as i can tell)  They'll let me know. i'm sure.

EdisonW1979 Posted at 2018-6-17 12:05
"It suddenly veered left and up.  Then directly into the house.  at about 20mph."

I thought that initially,  and was ready to blame it on the FW, but I honestly don't think this was that.    Even if it was partially the fault of the fw, I made the mistake of continuing to fly when i saw the errors.  I made the mistake of getting too close to the house.  So i'll take this one.   For where it was, I was probably too close the house anyway.  I had taken 7 successful flights before this one, and was getting a little loose on the controls.  So while I agree that DJI needs to address the issue, this one is on me, so i'll own it.  I don't have a problem with that.

I purposely fly with very few people around now, and this weekend I was flying around by dad's place which is nothing but country so the only thing that was in danger was the Mavic itself.

im sorry to hear about the little brush up type a crash.  doesn't sound too severe and sounds like wont be too bad of a repair..

obstacle avoidance is like "water resistance" on your phone... should not be relied on, but its there to save itself just in case there is a brush up with the inevitable...

i hate my mavic pro's OA....its terrible, it works well enough that i to use it on P-GPS mode when im threading the needle to so to speak,  if im landing it in a difficult spot or taking off from a difficult location.. but once its out in the open where im not threading the needing, i disable it or use sport mode... its so bad if sunny out.. omg

Wachtberger Posted at 2018-6-17 13:10
I am very sorry for your crash and damage dear friend but would like to echo others here saying that things like that can happen and you should not be too critical with yourself! Take it as another lesson learned like I did with a serious crash that I had a while ago with my MA, purely pilot error as well. Luckily my one survived it in good shape (apart of the propellers) but could have been the opposite too. Nevertheless I would recommend to take the time analysing what precisely has happened, which will definitely help you in the future. hallmark007 has provided some good explanations already. You should not hesitate to ask for more here.

thanks.  I'm just getting back home.  The flight logs are on the aircraft itself, right?  It is already on it's way to DJI.  If i can get the logs from the controller device, then i'll pull them off, and upload them.

I'm not being too hard on myself.  I'm just willing to take responsibility for the crash.  I'm not going to dwell on it, and I'm not going to beat myself up.  I crashed.  It's done.  The bird is getting fixed.   I will move on from there!

HereForTheBeer Posted at 2018-6-17 16:30
im sorry to hear about the little brush up type a crash.  doesn't sound too severe and sounds like wont be too bad of a repair..

obstacle avoidance is like "water resistance" on your phone... should not be relied on, but its there to save itself just in case there is a brush up with the inevitable...

yeah, you're right.  It's like the last line of defense.  And it didn't save me this time.  I'll know next time.

I"m still a rookie.  and I know it.  I'll get better.  So i'll take my lumps and learn from them.

Even with the sensors not working, it should not fly itself into a wall. Maybe it would be worth posting logs here for others to look at. It might help you and others understand what happened and avoid it in future. If it flew into the wall with no inputs from you, then it should be a warranty case and DJI should fix it for you.

3-D Posted at 2018-6-17 16:32
thanks.  I'm just getting back home.  The flight logs are on the aircraft itself, right?  It is already on it's way to DJI.  If i can get the logs from the controller device, then i'll pull them off, and upload them.

I'm not being too hard on myself.  I'm just willing to take responsibility for the crash.  I'm not going to dwell on it, and I'm not going to beat myself up.  I crashed.  It's done.  The bird is getting fixed.   I will move on from there!

Let's hope it will be repaired soon! The flightrecords that you can upload to phantomhelp are on your mobile device in a DJI subfolder.

Thanks EVERYBODY for their input.  I love the support from you guys, and the "keep your head up" mentality.   I'll post the logs so you guys can take a look,  but i'm pretty sure I know what the outcome will be.
So now, I'm in the countdown.  hopefully, they will get her all repaired, and sent back soon.  I'm leaving on the 8th, so getting it back by the 7th is my hope.

3-D Posted at 2018-6-18 03:57
Thanks EVERYBODY for their input.  I love the support from you guys, and the "keep your head up" mentality.   I'll post the logs so you guys can take a look,  but i'm pretty sure I know what the outcome will be.
So now, I'm in the countdown.  hopefully, they will get her all repaired, and sent back soon.  I'm leaving on the 8th, so getting it back by the 7th is my hope.

Fingers crossed for you mate - keep the thread updated on your progress too.

A CW Posted at 2018-6-18 04:19
Fingers crossed for you mate - keep the thread updated on your progress too.

absolutely will do.  

3-D Posted at 2018-6-18 04:48
absolutely will do.

      

It's only been 3 days.  My Mavic hasn't even reached DJI yet, and I feel like i'm suffering withdrawals...  My Air will reach the service center on Thursday of this week.  And then the real countdown begins.
I understand now, why people have multiples.  The weather here is warm but beautiful to fly in, and I'm missing it.  

sorry to hear that btw how old is your son

jacksonnai Posted at 2018-6-20 03:56
sorry to hear that btw how old is your son

My son is 19.

3-D Posted at 2018-6-20 03:59
My son is 19.

Ooh if he is younger just buy a tello 1st as a beginner drone, but it is normal cause he is still learning

3-D Posted at 2018-6-19 11:29
It's only been 3 days.  My Mavic hasn't even reached DJI yet, and I feel like i'm suffering withdrawals...  My Air will reach the service center on Thursday of this week.  And then the real countdown begins.
I understand now, why people have multiples.  The weather here is warm but beautiful to fly in, and I'm missing it.

Fingers crossed on a quick turn around. I sent a DOA P4P back to DJI in Dec '16 and it took 4 weeks to be retuned - though it was Christmas.

jacksonnai Posted at 2018-6-20 04:06
Ooh if he is younger just buy a tello 1st as a beginner drone, but it is normal cause he is still learning

oh, he didn't crash it... I did.  
I can't even blame it on him.  I'm glad too, because if he had he would just be sick.  He just wrecked his car earlier in the week, and if he had also crashed my MA, his mental state would be all jacked up!

A CW Posted at 2018-6-20 04:13
Fingers crossed on a quick turn around. I sent a DOA P4P back to DJI in Dec '16 and it took 4 weeks to be retuned - though it was Christmas.

that made my heart sink.  until i read that it was Christmas.  I'm going to say that was the reason!!

Their site says that it will take 7-10 business days to fix it.  I really hope it is in that range.
I opened a new thread to track the progress of it.  The new post is here.