I'm an experienced Part 107 pilot and have been using DJI products for a few years now. I owned the Inspire 1 and had zero problems. I upgraded to the Inspire 2 last year and it flew flawlessly with zero issues. Unfortuately, today my Inspire 2 fell from the sky while hovering about 100ft over a parking lot. As I was framing a shot of downtown Oakland, I heard the Inspire 2 blade make contact against the drone. A small piece of the right rear propellar broke off, then I watched my drone spin out of control as the prop continued to make contact against the drone. It came tumbling down, crashing onto the pavement and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. The right and left arms are broken, the top sensors are broken, the vibration absorbing board is broken. To make matters worse, 24mm DJI Lens for the X7 is also broken and my X7 is pretty scuffed up and damaged. I felt sick to my stomach watching thousands of dollars invested into this equipment just fall of of the sky without anything hitting it.

I noticed that the right side batter is what came into contact with the right side, rear prop. The corner of the battery is shaved, which mostly happened because the right arm shifted toward the battery during the flight. I'm not sure if it was vibration that caused it to shift or a loose screw, but whatever happened I hold DJI responsible. You pay a premium price for the Inspire 2, and there should be no reason for it to fall out of the sky because the props making contact against the battery. I saw a product online a month ago (ULTIMADRONE)
that is supposed to stablize the arms from rotating or shifting during flight, but didn't think to buy it because the arms on my drone seemed pretty secure. Boy, was I wrong!

My Inspire 2 is out of warranty so the cost to repair or replace is one me. DJI, I have purchased the OSMO, RONIN, RONIN M, Inspire 1, Inspire 2 and X5, X5s, X7 and DJI Lenses. I am so disappointed that this happend, I may never use your products again. This should not happen to anyone!

Hi mattv, we are so sorry for the crash accident, please contact our support team to start a ticket and send the drone in for evaluation and repair service, our repair center will help to get it addressed.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-8-10 03:43
Hi mattv, we are so sorry for the crash accident, please contact our support team to start a ticket and send the drone in for evaluation and repair service, our repair center will help to get it addressed.

DJI Mindy,

I appreciate the response. The drone is out of warranty and I need it to be fixed right away because I do commercial work with it and have jobs coming up. I was also selected to be part of  DJI+POND5's marketplace and I shoot every week and being without a drone for a long time is going to hurt my business. From what I have heard, DJI takes forever to do repairs. What is DJI wiling to do?

mattv Posted at 2018-8-10 06:59
DJI Mindy,

I appreciate the response. The drone is out of warranty and I need it to be fixed right away because I do commercial work with it and have jobs coming up. I was also selected to be part of  DJI+POND5's marketplace and I shoot every week and being without a drone for a long time is going to hurt my business. From what I have heard, DJI takes forever to do repairs. What is DJI wiling to do?

The repair service and the time frame have been much improved, if you have enough time, we still recommend to send in the drone to the official repair center for repair service, but I'm afraid the data analysis and the warranty service cannot be provided in your situation, we apologize for the inconvenience caused.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-8-11 01:19
The repair service and the time frame have been much improved, if you have enough time, we still recommend to send in the drone to the official repair center for repair service, but I'm afraid the data analysis and the warranty service cannot be provided in your situation, we apologize for the inconvenience caused.

For thousands of dollars of equipment to fail on it's own and DJI not willing to do anything about it will not inspire consumer confidence in this product or DJI. Policy is policy, I get that. There is a time to do the right thing DJI Mindy, when customer satisfaction trumps policy. I will be sharing my experience online and vlogging about it. Had I seen something like this happen before, I would have never invested the money I did into the Inspire 2. Think about how many people will change their minds after they know of my story and how DJI was unwilling to do anything about it.

Anyone who has a Inspire 2 reading this, I encourage you to buy the ULTIMADRONE or use Gaffer's tape to secure your drone arms. Any slight rotation of the arms in flight will cause your props to hit against the Inspire 2, causing them to break and then your drone will fall from the sky like mine. Do not take chances, I never thought somethng like this would happened to me. I was flying near a freeway about 2 minutes before my drone came crashing to the ground in a parking lot. While I'm extremely disappointed that this happened, I'm so happy that the drone didn't fall over the freeway, hitting a car, and causing a major accident.  This situation could have been much worse than it was.

mattv Posted at 2018-8-11 07:58
For thousands of dollars of equipment to fail on it's own and DJI not willing to do anything about it will not inspire consumer confidence in this product or DJI. Policy is policy, I get that. There is a time to do the right thing DJI Mindy, when customer satisfaction trumps policy. I will be sharing my experience online and vlogging about it. Had I seen something like this happen before, I would have never invested the money I did into the Inspire 2. Think about how many people will change their minds after they know of my story and how DJI was unwilling to do anything about it.

Anyone who has a Inspire 2 reading this, I encourage you to buy the ULTIMADRONE or use Gaffer's tape to secure your drone arms. Any slight rotation of the arms in flight will cause your props to hit against the Inspire 2, causing them to break and then your drone will fall from the sky like mine. Do not take chances, I never thought somethng like this would happened to me. I was flying near a freeway about 2 minutes before my drone came crashing to the ground in a parking lot. While I'm extremely disappointed that this happened, I'm so happy that the drone didn't fall over the freeway, hitting a car, and causing a major accident.  This situation could have been much worse than it was.

Very sorry for your crash! Not sure but from the photos it appears that the entire right boom has rotated.
If so it might have been loose where the screw tightens the arm to the boom?
If so the Ultimadrone fix might not have helped you, since that fix seems to only help with motors separating from the arm, not the rotation of the whole boom.

Cougar1 Posted at 2018-8-11 08:51
Very sorry for your crash! Not sure but from the photos it appears that the entire right boom has rotated.
If so it might have been loose where the screw tightens the arm to the boom?
If so the Ultimadrone fix might not have helped you, since that fix seems to only help with motors separating from the arm, not the rotation of the whole boom.

Thanks, Cougar1.

I think the arm rotated more when it crashed. The arm only rotated enough at first for the right rear prop to hit the battery on the right side, causing it to break a piece of prop off. The blade did not shave off any part of the front of the drone, so that tells me that only one prop broke for it to start spinning out of control and begin falling to the ground.

Nothing was loose before I took off, I would have never flown if it was. I found something interesting though...I checked the screw which secure the arm to the boom. There are two missing screws there. It seems like when my Inspire 2 was originally put manufactured they didn't put all the screws nessessary to secure the arm to the boom. I will take photos and upload. The screws did not come out during the crash because they are covered by a ring and that ring never came off after the crash.

mattv Posted at 2018-8-11 12:31
Thanks, Cougar1.

I think the arm rotated more when it crashed. The arm only rotated enough at first for the right rear prop to hit the battery on the right side, causing it to break a piece of prop off. The blade did not shave off any part of the front of the drone, so that tells me that only one prop broke for it to start spinning out of control and begin falling to the ground.

Mattv, here is a photo of the screw location that holds the boom in place.

Cougar1 Posted at 2018-8-11 14:43
Mattv, here is a photo of the screw location that holds the boom in place.

[view_image]

Cougar 1,

That screw which you circled was secure. I always make sure of that. However, under the ring that secures the boom and arm, there are missing screws. The only way to have known this was to remove the fastner ring which secures the boom. I never bothered to remove it because it voids the warranty.  I wanted to find out how the arm would rotate just enough to hit corner edge of the battery so I pulled the ring back and I found missing screws. Even if the screw which you circled is secure, if there is a little play on the inside of that ring, it's enough to be a problem. If you look at your inspire 2, you will see that there is less than 1/2 inch distance from the battery and the rear props. Even a little rotation of the inspire arm will cause your props to hit the battery. Gaffers tape between the boom and the arm would have held the arm from rotating, but for a drone that cost thousands of dollars, you shouldn't have to do that—I wish I would done that now, though. That could have saved my drone. Thanks for your reply!

mattv Posted at 2018-8-11 15:10
Cougar 1,

That screw which you circled was secure. I always make sure of that. However, under the ring that secures the boom and arm, there are missing screws. The only way to have known this was to remove the fastner ring which secures the boom. I never bothered to remove it because it voids the warranty.  I wanted to find out how the arm would rotate just enough to hit corner edge of the battery so I pulled the ring back and I found missing screws. Even if the screw which you circled is secure, if there is a little play on the inside of that ring, it's enough to be a problem. If you look at your inspire 2, you will see that there is less than 1/2 inch distance from the battery and the rear props. Even a little rotation of the inspire arm will cause your props to hit the battery. Gaffers tape between the boom and the arm would have held the arm from rotating, but for a drone that cost thousands of dollars, you shouldn't have to do that—I wish I would done that now, though. That could have saved my drone. Thanks for your reply!

mattv, Agree that the missing 2 screws are not good news, however the boom consists of 2 parts are held together with 6 screws. If you remove the remaining 4 screws you can see that the boom can be separated in 2 parts. I don't think that the missing screws caused this but rather that the screw I mentioned before where bottomed out and not gripping firmly on the splines allowing the entire boom to rotate. Not 100% sure but likely at least in my mind.

Cougar1 Posted at 2018-8-11 16:29
mattv, Agree that the missing 2 screws are not good news, however the boom consists of 2 parts are held together with 6 screws. If you remove the remaining 4 screws you can see that the boom can be separated in 2 parts. I don't think that the missing screws caused this but rather that the screw I mentioned before where bottomed out and not gripping firmly on the splines allowing the entire boom to rotate. Not 100% sure but likely at least in my mind.

[view_image]

Cougar 1,

I actually didn't take the whole piece out of the boom like you did at first to see all the screws.  When I looked again, I only have 3 of the 6 screws in place. Since the boom can be seperated in two parts, then I think only one side got loose at first, causing only one prop to break as it rotated toward the battery. If the whole arm (two parts) shifted together, the front of the aircraft would have shown signs of making contact with the props—this did not happen. Only one prop broke in the air, then the other 3 broke when it came crashing to the ground. I appreciate you taking time to post the photo and reply. Once I repair the drone, I'm going to reinforce the boom with gaffers tape to hold it from shifting.

mattv Posted at 2018-8-11 20:34
Cougar 1,

I actually didn't take the whole piece out of the boom like you did at first to see all the screws.  When I looked again, I only have 3 of the 6 screws in place. Since the boom can be seperated in two parts, then I think only one side got loose at first, causing only one prop to break as it rotated toward the battery. If the whole arm (two parts) shifted together, the front of the aircraft would have shown signs of making contact with the props—this did not happen. Only one prop broke in the air, then the other 3 broke when it came crashing to the ground. I appreciate you taking time to post the photo and reply. Once I repair the drone, I'm going to reinforce the boom with gaffers tape to hold it from shifting.

mattv, Don't want to argue but think you are missing my point. If you look at the first photo you posted you can clearly see that the two parts are still aligned and has not separated as a result of missing screws or the impact itself.

More likely are that there where not sufficient clamping force on the screw I marked in my first photo. The screw can feel tight but if the screw is bottomed out it will not have any clamping force allowing the whole unit to rotate instead of holding tight onto the splines. The propeller has not only hit the edge of the battery but also almost cheared off the support strut, and the parts are still aligned. As a final thought I do not think any Ultimadrone solution or Gaffers tape would have made any difference.  Anyway, good luck with the repairs.

Cougar1 Posted at 2018-8-12 02:54
mattv, Don't want to argue but think you are missing my point. If you look at the first photo you posted you can clearly see that the two parts are still aligned and has not separated as a result of missing screws or the impact itself.

More likely are that there where not sufficient clamping force on the screw I marked in my first photo. The screw can feel tight but if the screw is bottomed out it will not have any clamping force allowing the whole unit to rotate instead of holding tight onto the splines. The propeller has not only hit the edge of the battery but also almost cheared off the support strut, and the parts are still aligned. As a final thought I do not think any Ultimadrone solution or Gaffers tape would have made any difference.  Anyway, good luck with the repairs.

Cougar 1, thank you for your feedback. I understand what you are saying, I get it. Once again, thanks for taking the time to respond and post photos. You’re explanations are right on point. Is it possible for the screw to have been bottomed out? Absolutely. If one screw is the only thing keeping the arm from rotating/shifting in flight, then that is a huge liability isn’t it? It's possible that happened. I don’t think that’s the only thing that could have happened though.

All I'm saying is if both sides would have rotated equally together, then two props would have broke at the same time. One rear prop hitting the battery (which happened), and the other prop hitting the nose of the aircraft. That is not how it happened. I heard a slight rattle as the prop made contact against the drone (which as the battery), a few inches of the prop broke off, but the remaining three were functional. The drone did not fall immediately. It started to stay level in the air, next it went into a spin and crashed. As it hit the ground, the rest of the props were broken on impact and when the Inspire 2 flipped upside down.

Now, the rotation of the arm in the picture looks pretty bad, but it did not rotate that much in flight, there are no signs or markings to indicate that the front prop ever made contact with the drone, because it never did. Although the photo looks like the parts are aligned, they are not. The front and rear motor on the right side are actually off. The prop hit the strut too—you are right about that. That happened most likely when it hit the ground, rotating the arm more, because only a few inches of the prop broke off while it was in the air so the rotation wasn’t as it shows in the photo until after it crashed.

One other thing to note: when I move front side of the arm left and right, there is no movement, it’s attached pretty well. When I attempt the same thing with the rear part of the arm, there is movement, even with the screw on tight that you circled. The rear arm only had to move a little bit to break a few inches of the prop off while making contact with the battery to send it to the ground.

My reason for posting about this was to warn other Inspire 2 pilots, and also to make sure DJI knows of this problem. I reached out to DJI customer service about this and they escalated the issue and a manager was supposed to call me. I have not received a call as of yet.

I had a unit that almost did the same thing after 2 hours of flight time logged on it. While getting ready to take off, I powered up the unit and immediately killed power when I started hearing this tremendous racket. Turns out one arm was twisted and the front propeller was hitting the sensor on the FPV cam spreaders.

Upon looking it all the next day, the torx screw that holds it all snug as shown in this thread was quite loose. I removed it, and noted that was no thread locking compound on it. In engineering that is a major blunder and in aerospace manifacturing is a fireable offense.

It was not this that happened then?

No that appears to be an entirely different problem. The video above shows an individual motor mount assembly detaching from the arm which is the problem that all the third party fixes were trying to address including the ultimadrone one mentioned. This crash seems to be related to the whole arm rotating in the mount which would have happened even with one of those fixes applied unless they somehow also secore the whole arm to the clamping assembly.

DALLEN Posted at 2018-8-12 21:29
I had a unit that almost did the same thing after 2 hours of flight time logged on it. While getting ready to take off, I powered up the unit and immediately killed power when I started hearing this tremendous racket. Turns out one arm was twisted and the front propeller was hitting the sensor on the FPV cam spreaders.

Upon looking it all the next day, the torx screw that holds it all snug as shown in this thread was quite loose. I removed it, and noted that was no thread locking compound on it. In engineering that is a major blunder and in aerospace manifacturing is a fireable offense.

Dallen, same thing with the torx screw on mine, no locking compound. I'm glad you heard the sound of the prop hitting the sensor on the FPV before you took off. Had it happened in flight, you would have had an acccident like I did.

DaBone Posted at 2018-8-13 04:02
It was not this that happened then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=YP4gqqbJ4zg

Thanks for posting the video, DaBone. Looks like his prop hit the front area of the drone. This kind of stuff should not happen.

Paul Joy Posted at 2018-8-13 04:26
No that appears to be an entirely different problem. The video above shows an individual motor mount assembly detaching from the arm which is the problem that all the third party fixes were trying to address including the ultimadrone one mentioned. This crash seems to be related to the whole arm rotating in the mount which would have happened even with one of those fixes applied unless they somehow also secore the whole arm to the clamping assembly.

I won't fly the Inpire 2 again unless I can find a way to secure the whole arm to the clamp assembly. I can't trust the quality of DJI anymore. Do you know of any fixes?

How man flight hours were on the I2 ? What was the inspection schedule and what was performed ? DJI Have a service  manual for the I2 and everything should be checked especially when in commercial use,  the arms and legs should be checked for play and screws and nuts for tightness, this has been know to come loose and should be high on anyone check list.

Mad_Angler1 Posted at 2018-8-13 15:04
How man flight hours were on the I2 ? What was the inspection schedule and what was performed ? DJI Have a service  manual for the I2 and everything should be checked especially when in commercial use,  the arms and legs should be checked for play and screws and nuts for tightness, this has been know to come loose and should be high on anyone check list.

Hi Mad, This is indeed the basics in pre flight checks. Sometime difficult to spot loose bolts. Using markers makes it easier to spot problems.

mattv Posted at 2018-8-9 20:00
[view_image][view_image]

Omg that hurt
sorry to saw that

mattv Posted at 2018-8-11 07:58
For thousands of dollars of equipment to fail on it's own and DJI not willing to do anything about it will not inspire consumer confidence in this product or DJI. Policy is policy, I get that. There is a time to do the right thing DJI Mindy, when customer satisfaction trumps policy. I will be sharing my experience online and vlogging about it. Had I seen something like this happen before, I would have never invested the money I did into the Inspire 2. Think about how many people will change their minds after they know of my story and how DJI was unwilling to do anything about it.

Anyone who has a Inspire 2 reading this, I encourage you to buy the ULTIMADRONE or use Gaffer's tape to secure your drone arms. Any slight rotation of the arms in flight will cause your props to hit against the Inspire 2, causing them to break and then your drone will fall from the sky like mine. Do not take chances, I never thought somethng like this would happened to me. I was flying near a freeway about 2 minutes before my drone came crashing to the ground in a parking lot. While I'm extremely disappointed that this happened, I'm so happy that the drone didn't fall over the freeway, hitting a car, and causing a major accident.  This situation could have been much worse than it was.

Hi mattv, sorry for my late response because I was off duty for several days, we totally understand your frustration and this is not what we expected for your experience either, we have verified with the engineers and it is recommended to send in the drone for evaluation first and then we may provide further assistance, thanks for your understanding.

Mad_Angler1 Posted at 2018-8-13 15:04
How man flight hours were on the I2 ? What was the inspection schedule and what was performed ? DJI Have a service  manual for the I2 and everything should be checked especially when in commercial use,  the arms and legs should be checked for play and screws and nuts for tightness, this has been know to come loose and should be high on anyone check list.

Yes, I always inspect before flying and do recommended checks.

PH2DW Posted at 2018-8-14 01:17
Hi Mad, This is indeed the basics in pre flight checks. Sometime difficult to spot loose bolts. Using markers makes it easier to spot problems.

[view_image]

Thanks for the reference!

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-8-19 20:07
Hi mattv, sorry for my late response because I was off duty for several days, we totally understand your frustration and this is not what we expected for your experience either, we have verified with the engineers and it is recommended to send in the drone for evaluation first and then we may provide further assistance, thanks for your understanding.

DJI Mindy,

A manager called me from DJI recently. He said that there is nothing that DJI can do. Because the Inspire 2 was out of warranty, they won't even check the flight records unless I pay for it. Very disappointed.

mattv Posted at 2018-8-19 20:15
DJI Mindy,

A manager called me from DJI recently. He said that there is nothing that DJI can do. Because the Inspire 2 was out of warranty, they won't even check the flight records unless I pay for it. Very disappointed.

Hi Matt

Very sorry to read about your crash.  

I believe that after the arm started to rotate,  the right rear prop strikes the battery case and breaks  a piece off... This would cause an extreme out of balance condition that would tear the motor off the arm before any further damage could occur.  IMO

Hope you get this solved and repaired.

PS  I have the Ultimate drone kit installed and if the rotation arm did slip, the UDK would not have helped.
Rich

This is a definite design flaw by DJI engineers.  There should be a recall on the I2  for this and I hope the I3(whenever and if they come out) will have a better design.

RichJ53 Posted at 2018-8-19 21:46
Hi Matt

Very sorry to read about your crash.  

Hi RichJ53,
Thanks for your comments. You're right, the UDK would have not helped. I thought that it connected to the area where arm connects to the boom, preventing it from slipping/rotating, but it doesn't. The Inspire 2 needs something other than one screw keeping it from slipping/rotating in flight.

So far, DJI is not willing to even look at to the flight records or deal with the issue. They only offered me 10% off of the repair.

Lucas775 Posted at 2018-8-19 21:53
This is a definite design flaw by DJI engineers.  There should be a recall on the I2  for this and I hope the I3(whenever and if they come out) will have a better design.

Yes, Lucas775, this is a serious design flaw. I'm so glad nobody got hurt.

Hi, we finally decided to produce a third smaller batch of Ultimadrone Kits (Probably the last one) with expected delivery in the 3 or 4th week of September.
Pre-orders are now LIVE (1st come, 1st serve) and we expect the kit to be sold out by the delivery date, or shortly after.
If you would like to pre-order it, please visit:
http://www.ultimadrone.com

mattv Posted at 2018-8-19 20:15
DJI Mindy,

A manager called me from DJI recently. He said that there is nothing that DJI can do. Because the Inspire 2 was out of warranty, they won't even check the flight records unless I pay for it. Very disappointed.

Hi, mattv, sorry to hear that, according to the after-sales policy, we are unable to apply the data analysis when the drone has been out of warranty, we are verifying with our engineers to see if there is other resolution, I will keep you updated once I hear from them, please wait patiently, thank you.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-8-21 19:54
Hi, mattv, sorry to hear that, according to the after-sales policy, we are unable to apply the data analysis when the drone has been out of warranty, we are verifying with our engineers to see if there is other resolution, I will keep you updated once I hear from them, please wait patiently, thank you.

Thanks, DJI Mindy.

I have sent my X7 for repair last week and contacted DJI Support three times because something I wanted repaired was not shown in the repair estimate I received. Customer service said someone would call me back, but I never got a call back. I sent an email, explaining the situation, and I never received a reply. The support of DJI is terrible.

My Inspire 2 is on the way for repair.

mattv Posted at 2018-8-21 21:26
Thanks, DJI Mindy.

I have sent my X7 for repair last week and contacted DJI Support three times because something I wanted repaired was not shown in the repair estimate I received. Customer service said someone would call me back, but I never got a call back. I sent an email, explaining the situation, and I never received a reply. The support of DJI is terrible.

We apologize again for the lack of promise from our support team, we managed to get your case number via your Forum account, your experience has bee escalated to the appropriate team to investigate, we will have someone to contact you soon, please wait patiently, thank you.

Elektrica Atellani Posted at 2018-8-20 08:40
Hi, we finally decided to produce a third smaller batch of Ultimadrone Kits (Probably the last one) with expected delivery in the 3 or 4th week of September.
Pre-orders are now LIVE (1st come, 1st serve) and we expect the kit to be sold out by the delivery date, or shortly after.
If you would like to pre-order it, please visit:

All part arrived and pre-orders are shipping this week. There're still +/- 10 kits available in stock and ready to ship next week. This is probably going to be the last batch to be manufactured.

Elektrica Atellani Posted at 2018-9-12 02:28
All part arrived and pre-orders are shipping this week. There're still +/- 10 kits available in stock and ready to ship next week. This is probably going to be the last batch to be manufactured.

Only 2 left in stock after pre-orders have shipped...

Elektrica Atellani Posted at 2018-9-12 07:40
Only 2 left in stock after pre-orders have shipped...

Why are these only sold as a pre-order.  That seems really odd to me.  

FlyinLo Posted at 2-17 15:07
Why are these only sold as a pre-order.  That seems really odd to me.

Mostly because it takes a while to make them, some suppliers have long delivery times and because we're always surprised by how many are requested. We never thought of making more than a hundred, but we kept getting requests to make more and we ended up making several hundreds. We always assume that no more are needed, but then we get more requests and when we have enough, we make a new batch + some more (Pre-orders). This was a project engineered for personal use, not for commercial purposes. It simply exceed every possible expectation.

mattv Posted at 2018-8-9 20:00
[view_image][view_image]

I don't care if the warranty is up. I still feel the dji should cover their products and it's bad business.  They don't cover your drone even if  you have insurance on it  they  will say their' was nothing wrong with the drone and it's  your fault. I have  clearly shown them my  flight record and it shows that I didn't touch the controller when it flew off.