I'd like to start off by saying I don't mind taking fault when it's due, but this was not my fault this time. For reference, I was flying my drone one day and my dog decided to attack it. Drone went crazy and smacked a tree. I sucked it up and coughed up $500 to fix it.


What happened?


I was doing an engagement session at a Lake on a Dock and went to land the drone on the dock, auto landing never enaged so I tried throttling back up figuring the dock vs the water was throwing it off and the drone refused to go up (Later found out from DJI top sensor detected someting) causing the drone to bounce off the dock and then slungshot into the water.


Now DJI is denying any responbility and gives me the below excuse.


- - - - - - -

1. Customer flying the drone low at about 8.8 meters away from the water.
2. Customer immediately decide to throttle up at this point but the top avoidance system sense something above.
3. The drone got hit from above and drop into water. it might be a moving boat top or something from above hit the drone.
4. Pilot error hitting something above and drop the drone into the water.

According to the analysis, the incident was not caused by any product malfunction factors. As such, we could not provide warranty service.
- - - - - - -


Now my only complaint is this is completely wrong and false, and I even sent them a Pin drop to the GPS coordinates where I was. There was NOTHING above me. I was NOT on a boat. There were no trees, bridges, roofs, flags, ANYTHING above me within 75 yards. I'm all for taking Pilot Error while trying to land on a small dock, but don't try giving me some bogest excuse saying it detected something from above. Yeah, the sky.


They now want $1,000 to repair it due to Pilot Error. Lol okay

Check out your TXT flight log to see if it explains what happened. You can upload and view it online here. If you'd like other people to review and comment on your flight log, then please post a link back here after you upload it.

msinger Posted at 11-12 07:54
Check out your TXT flight log to see if it explains what happened. You can upload and view it online here. If you'd like other people to review and comment on your flight log, then please post a link back here after you upload it.

Thank you for the response, DJI already reviewed it and that is the conclusion they pronounced. "Imaginary items from above" haha

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/EYT2AR1O99MS9HLFU6A7/

Your flight logs shows the following:

- You ascended straight up to 196 feet
- You descended straight down to 31 feet. The downward sensors detected an obstacle at about 5 feet away at this point.
- You quickly moved the throttle from the full down position to the full up position (not sure why) and your Mavic impacted something right after doing that.

My assessment -- it appears you descended toward the dock as quickly as possible expecting that the drone would auto switch to forced landing mode (like it usually does) and softly land. When it didn't slow down, you quickly moved the throttle to the full up position to attempt to prevent the drone from slamming into the dock. It didn't have enough time to slow down and crashed into the dock 0.4 seconds after you moved the throttle to the full up position. The "upward obstacle detected" messages can be disregarded since that occurred after the drone tipped over on the dock and starting falling into the water.

msinger Posted at 11-12 08:57
Your flight logs shows the following:

- You ascended straight up to 196 feet

That sounds pretty accurate and while I'm not saying it was the best judgment on my bike because it wasn't and will take fault on that. When I noticed the landing wasn't engaging I did get scared and tried thrusting back up and I don't know why but it did not allow me to. And at that point, as you pointed out It was still 30 feet off the ground, which isn't that low to begin with. So something had to malfunction or miscalculate to have caused  this.

scarmack Posted at 11-12 09:05
That sounds pretty accurate and while I'm not saying it was the best judgment on my bike because it wasn't and will take fault on that. When I noticed the landing wasn't engaging I did get scared and tried thrusting back up and I don't know why but it did not allow me to. And at that point, as you pointed out It was still 30 feet off the ground, which isn't that low to begin with. So something had to malfunction or miscalculate to have caused  this.

Or just chalk it up to user error and live and learn?

One piece of advice I can give you is that the sensors are not foolproof. You should never rely on them 100% to prevent crashing into the ground (or other obstacles). Always ease your drone down to the ground in order to ensure a safe landing (even more so when flying near water).

msinger Posted at 11-12 09:18
One piece of advice I can give you is that the sensors are not foolproof. You should never rely on them 100% to prevent crashing into the ground (or other obstacles). Always ease your drone down to the ground in order to ensure a safe landing (even more so when flying near water).

Appreciate the heads up! Will definitely be a lot more careful next time.

Hi Scarmack, this situation has filled us with regret, we are sincerely sorry about the result. We would like you to know that before our Data Analysis team provide a final resolution, we made sure that everything will be fair about the investigation. The data analysis result was made by the technical team based it on the flight data and records you’ve provided. Unfortunately, DJI cannot apply warranty service for this case that has no product malfunction found. Hope you understand.

DJI Diana Posted at 11-12 10:39
Hi Scarmack, this situation has filled us with regret, we are sincerely sorry about the result. We would like you to know that before our Data Analysis team provide a final resolution, we made sure that everything will be fair about the investigation. The data analysis result was made by the technical team based it on the flight data and records you’ve provided. Unfortunately, DJI cannot apply warranty service for this case that has no product malfunction found. Hope you understand.

I understand that, but don't use a Bogus claim that was supplied to me to not cover any warranty repairs.

- - - - -
3. The drone got hit from above and drop into water. it might be a moving boat top or something from above hit the drone.
4. Pilot error hitting something above and drop the drone into the water.
- - - - -

I'm all for taking credit and blame, but it didn't hit anything "from above".

scarmack Posted at 11-12 10:41
I understand that, but don't use a Bogus claim that was supplied to me to not cover any warranty repairs.

- - - - -

I'm sorry to hear if you feel it that way, Scarmack. The info that was provided by our Analysis Team are all based on the Flight Record of your drone. The point 3 and 4 may not be accurate and that is somehow just a conclusion since what we can only see is just how the sensor works and what they detected above. It might not be a moving boat but the sensor detected something above when you throttled up which probably caused the crash. In cases like this, if there's a strong proof on the record that the unit malfunctioned that's why the drone crashed, we won't hesitate to have it covered under warranty. Hope you understand. Thanks for your support and hope you'll be back in the air soon!

@DJI Diana, check out my assessment in post #4 above. The data shows the drone crashed into the ground (a dock in this case).