Dear Fellow Drone Pilots,

I have been flying DJI drones for over five years and never have I ever seen a DJI drone rapidly lose altitude to the point where it goes for a drink. This is what happened in Heidelberg, Germany during a recent trip to Europe. I was flying getting some truly amazing shots of the castle and Old city of Heidelberg, which is truly an awesome city, using my DJI Mavic Mini. I want to add it had rained earlier but it was not raining, which had it been I would have discontinued immediately, during the flight and the sensors were all clear and I have flown just after the rain a bunch of times.  In regards to the flight, It was a pretty uneventful flight until just before I was going to bring it home and fly back to the home point. I was successful in bringing it back to just in front of me, but then It started doing its own thing. About 150 feet in front of me it started rapidly using altitude at a fast rate above the river and the next thing I know it goes "plop" straight into the Neckar river. At first, I attempted to put stick up but there was no response from the stick even though I had a full connection to the drone. So I let go of the sticks thinking it should hover but NO it descended straight into the fast-moving Neckar River. I want to be clear that I was 250 feet in the air on the flight back to avoid the water confusing the sensors. So the water scenario doesn't apply to this incident. Unfortunately, time was limited and due to the fast current and depth of the Neckar River retrieving it would be an impossible task. I would love to hear your opinion on this matter and if you had this happen to you. In hindsight, I should have attempted to stick up one more time, but it happened so fast that the time to correct was limited. All I know is that Mavic Mini is a beginner drone, as DJI markets it anyway, so this issue needs to be addressed because if a guy like me who has flown most of their drones gets stumped by this then beginners fall victim to this drone in the drink. So DJI I ask you to please fix this issue if your going to market it to new drone pilots because this is UNACCEPTABLE!

I hope this doesn't happen to you and happy flying,'
Cooper Neel

UNACCEPTABLE   I agree with you ...

Well the good news is your not on your own. There have been some very similar voluntary descent with Mavic mini, no word from dji as of yet and I don’t envisage it happening anytime soon.


Best bet is to put up flight log .

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

If you could add some more info.

Did you change props
Was there much wind
What mode were you flying in.

Hi DroheMann,

Wow, bad luck for you and all the MM owners. Again one MM with a unwanted uncontrolled descend. (well, it looks like that reading your story)

If you like post your flightlog on here using this link > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

Cheers
JJB

What irritates the most are all the reasons that some adduce to justify these shameful falls: too much wind when it was largely within the specifications of the Mini, batteries not recharged from 1 minute before, less than 100 connected satellites, crazy compass and other bull....
DJI gets screwed and doesn't respond, neither on the forum nor to the tickets.

hallmark007 Posted at 3-12 05:12
Well the good news is your not on your own. There have been some very similar voluntary descent with Mavic mini, no word from dji as of yet and I don’t envisage it happening anytime soon.

Flight Mode: P Mode

Wind: From the ground at where I took off was not windy, but 250 ft in the air above a river is very different. For most of  the flight it didn’t seem the wind bothered it, but what do I know lol.

Props: I hadn’t crashed it and there was no damage to the props so I didn’t change them.

JJB* Posted at 3-12 05:14
Hi DroheMann,

Wow, bad luck for you and all the MM owners. Again one MM with a unwanted uncontrolled descend. (well, it looks like that reading your story)

Will do later today. Just need to figure out how to get it off the phone. Thanks!

Renato61 Posted at 3-12 05:49
What irritates the most are all the reasons that some adduce to justify these shameful falls: too much wind when it was largely within the specifications of the Mini, batteries not recharged from 1 minute before, less than 100 connected satellites, crazy compass and other bull....
DJI gets screwed and doesn't respond, neither on the forum nor to the tickets.

Hi
I have been following your case and lack of response from dji is very strange, anytime I’ve had to deal with dji response has always been between 24/48 hours, it’s never been longer than this. So first check your own mail and your trash mail, if nothing there, then contact again, also come here and try track down a moderator dji Mindy is normally extremely quick and helpful in these matters, but something is not right in your case .

DrohneMann Posted at 3-12 05:55
Flight Mode: P Mode

Wind: From the ground at where I took off was not windy, but 250 ft in the air above a river is very different. For most of  the flight it didn’t seem the wind bothered it, but what do I know lol.

If it was wind you might have noticed it going backwards, or if out of sight loosing ground according to telemetry.
I asked the questions just to see if we can get some common denominators as to what could be the cause .

hallmark007 Posted at 3-12 06:46
If it was wind you might have noticed it going backwards, or if out of sight loosing ground according to telemetry.
I asked the questions just to see if we can get some common denominators as to what could be the cause .

It was never pushed backwards and seemed to be pretty stable.

DrohneMann Posted at 3-12 06:51
It was never pushed backwards and seemed to be pretty stable.

Good job ...

In your case and several others it looks like the mini receives a false critical battery signal of less than 10% for example and triggers a forced landing. in this case vertical movement is no longer possible

panthere Posted at 3-12 07:09
In your case and several others it looks like the mini receives a false critical battery signal of less than 10% for example and triggers a forced landing. in this case vertical movement is no longer possible

Thinks it is much better to wait and see the log and draw conclusions seeing data, speculations is not good for anybody

cheers
JJB

This is only a hypothesis, but it is time for DJI to explain this serious problem.

panthere Posted at 3-12 07:09
In your case and several others it looks like the mini receives a false critical battery signal of less than 10% for example and triggers a forced landing. in this case vertical movement is no longer possible

I like your thinking, but wouldn’t  the computer voice say landing? But you can’t override it just like critical battery landing mode.

Hi, thank you for reaching out and we're sorry to know the incident happened to your DJI Mavic Mini. I will highly recommend you to contact our support team at https://www.dji.com for you to open a ticket case about this incident. We do have our professional team who will handle this kind of query of yours. Also, please sync your flight records before contacting our support team. Thank you for your understanding and support!

You are right drohnemann, personally I am waiting for this problem to be solved to buy this Mini, it may take time.

Seems like a good idea given this rapid descent issue.

DJI Gamora Posted at 3-12 07:58
Hi, thank you for reaching out and we're sorry to know the incident happened to your DJI Mavic Mini. I will highly recommend you to contact our support team at https://www.dji.com for you to open a ticket case about this incident. We do have our professional team who will handle this kind of query of yours. Also, please sync your flight records before contacting our support team. Thank you for your understanding and support!

Will do it later today when I have time.

Sorry for your loss.
I have experienced this "drops" several times, and always reported here, my lucky part is that I always was above the drone in a hill, so even with a huge drop, I could see it and re-gain altitude by pushing left stick up. I also experienced how this command took some seconds to make the Mini rise again, and I can see how this could end up badly for some users being close to trees, wires or water.
Since my last drop, I hardly flew my Mini, or I do it in P and C mode very very subtle stuff, but I'm waiting for next update which may fix some of this bugs.
I really hope the Flight Log shows there was something wrong with drone and you get a replacement.

This is so frustrating, I now have ZERO confidence in this drone. SHAME ON YOU DJI!

hallmark007 Posted at 3-12 06:43
Hi
I have been following your case and lack of response from dji is very strange, anytime I’ve had to deal with dji response has always been between 24/48 hours, it’s never been longer than this. So first check your own mail and your trash mail, if nothing there, then contact again, also come here and try track down a moderator dji Mindy is normally extremely quick and helpful in these matters, but something is not right in your case .

In my trash mail there is any answer.
Dji have my mail, if my request was not clear enough to ask for more data.
Customer management is very poor.

Well that settles it. If over water, my Mini is keeping his flotation "top hat" on until this issue is resolved. Then at least I can probably retrieve it when this happens to me.

Since DJI doesn't seem to be going to bat for us on this, maybe we should keep a database of details about each lost Mini.....s/n, nr of flights, approximate altitude, temperature. etc.

It says reply use props or downvote use props, what props ?

Edit it looks like it’s fixed

GaryDoug Posted at 3-12 12:14
Well that settles it. If over water, my Mini is keeping his flotation "top hat" on until this issue is resolved. Then at least I can probably retrieve it when this happens to me.

Since DJI doesn't seem to be going to bat for us on this, maybe we should keep a database of details about each lost Mini.....s/n, nr of flights, approximate altitude, temperature. etc.

Yeah good thinking! Then you can at least have video proof of what happened.

DrohneMann Posted at 3-12 12:45
Yeah good thinking! Then you can at least have video proof of what happened.

You should have video on your device .

Dear Interested Parties,

Pasted down below is the flight log from the flight that ended in my drone going for a drink in the Neckar River. Let me know your findings in the comments section and thank you in advance for your help.

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/NC5IK6D3IOY7IVXU4LMM/
Best Regards,

DrohneMann

I have my MM since November and haven't had any issues so far. I do like my MM. But after reading countless stories of sudden descents and the CLEAR LACK OF ANY HELPFUL INPUT FROM DJI, I think, should it ever happen to me, I most certainly won't ever purchase another dji drone. To the original OP, did you have plenty of satellites?
Im also wondering, due to the recent influx of descents, if this could be a dji batch problem as we all use latest FW?

Almost all along there were `` not enough force esc error '' warnings also at 11.37s. you lowered the left stick for 5 seconds and right after at 11.49  there was one auto landing. I am a beginner in reading  flying newspapers I may be wrong. so wait to see the opinion of the pro here. Good luck to you

panthere Posted at 3-12 14:09
At 11.37s. you lowered the left stick for 5 seconds and right after at 11.49 it caused an auto landing.

Nonsense. After that mini was still flying normally and only at 12min 45sec started uncommanded descent.

lowering the left stick for 5 seconds while at 200+ altitude will not cause an auto landing.

davidms Posted at 3-12 14:24
lowering the left stick for 5 seconds while at 200+ altitude will not cause an auto landing.

so what caused the auto landing?

I don't see an auto landing warning, I only see uncommanded descent given the lack of response to full up on left stick.

I am curious about how these reports started springing up since Jan. Has anyone seen this issue reported before Jan?

Already a typical mini issue. Still not a word from dji..

davidms Posted at 3-12 14:31
I don't see an auto landing warning, I only see uncommanded descent given the lack of response to full up on left stick.

11m.49s ,7 ...look fine

Before sentencing non-sense you should first understand what an ESC Not Enough Force error means on a Mavic Mini. It didn't auto-land and it didn't descent because it wanted to.

The drone tried to cope the best it could for almost all the flight while being heavily afflicted by ESC NEF errors, at 3.8 V per cell it couldn't handle them anymore, not having enough power.
Tbh I don't know if ESC Errors come w/out user warning... I guess they can if they're quite isolated, but the sheer number suggests they should have triggered multiple warnings.

Flattened props or ESC/battery related problems.

Guorium Posted at 3-12 14:33
I am curious about how these reports started springing up since Jan. Has anyone seen this issue reported before Jan?

of course this was an issue before january.  

According to the verbose .csv file there were 20 "Code: 30168 / Max power load reached" app messages throughout the flight.  The abbreviated .csv file shows an RTH update but no Code: 30168 warnings.  Why the discrepancy?      

DrohneMann Posted at 3-12 09:35
Will do it later today when I have time.

Thank you for your understanding