Return home didn't make it.  I have/had the Mavic Air, was over the water when the automatic return home activated.  Unfortunately the drone made it 1/2 way then lost altitude and went right into the water.  Unretreavable.  Had I been warned I would have brought the drone in myself.  everything seemed to be fine until the alarms were sounding.  It seemed like the battery just ran down in quadruple time.  I don't think this was a user error, but rather a Communication/battery error from the drone to the remote.  Now what?  Insurance plans don't cover completely lost drones.  How can I take this up with DJI?

Could it have caused by strong wind ? Mavic Air is a small drone. It can't handle strong winds so the battery will drain very very faster to stay stable during the wind. I think you must send your flight records to DJI Support. I think they will help you if there is a problem with the aircraft, by looking at your flight records. I am very sad to hear that you have lost yout drone :/

I'm currently looking at purchasing a drone and i'm looking at the Mavic Mini or Air 2 and i'm just curious how drones handle low battery/loss of comms over water as I once saw a video of a drone slowly decending to water and the guy jumped in the water to get it. I read in the manual it's possible to control the direction of decend when in this state - Was you not able to do that?

I watched the video and there were no indicators that high winds were an issue, I’ve since been able to put in a “fly away” case with DJI and they are reviewing it.  There’s a way to sync the data and the footage from the drone so they can view the data, we’ll see what the outcome is. But from what i saw, nothing unusual occurred during the flight, it went into return home mode, but didn’t make it all the way to shore.  1st time that’s happened to me like that.  I do like their product, IF i get another one, I’ll make sure I bring it in well in advance of what their warning system is designed to do.