I live on a lake in Southwestern VA.  I am a wakeboarder and wakesurfer.  I recently purchased a DJI Mavic 2 Zoom to take pictures of myself and friends wakeboarding/wakesurfing behind my boat.  So, needless to say much of my work with the drone would be over water.  A couple of days ago, while anchored in a quiet cove, I decided to fly my drone to practice with some of the active flight features of my drone.  I turned on my controller and then the drone.  Once they were connected I used the automatic take off feature to lift the drone off from the fan tail of my boat.  The drone ascended about 4' and hovered above the fantail of my boat.  So at this point, the drone was only about 6' away from my controller.  I tried to maneuver the drone away from my boat (ascend) before beginning the "rocket" shot feature, but the drone did not respond to any maneuver commands from my joy stick.  It would not ascend, descend, rotate go forward or backward or sideways.  I decided to attempt landing the drone--but the drone would not respond to the descend joystick command.  I tried landing the drone with the automatic landing command--no response.  At this point my boat was rotating around my anchor line in a mild breeze (5 mph) so the drone was no longer above my boat.  I considered that perhaps some of the obstacle avoidance features were causing the drone to freeze so I shifted my controller from "P" to "S" mode to disable these features.  Still the drone would not respond but continued to hover about 6' off the water, now about 30' from my boat.  I then went into my settings menu on the controller and manually disabled all automatic avoidance features.  Still the drone would not respond.  At this point, I was down to about 36% of battery.  I consulted by phone with a friend with more experience on the Mavic 2 than I and he suggested as a desperation measure to shut down and reboot the controller.  I attempted this, but as soon as the controller shut down the drone began to descend and I was unable to reestablish control before it crashed into the water.  Despite the efforts of a friend who was in the water only a few feet from where the drone crashed, we could not save the drone which sank in about 25' of water.
Can any reader suggest what might have caused this issue?  What could have caused the drone to freeze and not respond to joystick commands?  Does anyone have a suggestion of what I should have done   to save this situation?

I have made a claim under my DJI Refresh Care policy for replacement of the drone, but I see that the policy generally requires that you return your damaged drone to take advantage of the policy so I am expecting my claim to be denied.  Any suggestions on what I might do to get my drone replaced?

Thanks in advance to any responders who offer help on these issues.

Hi John,

what a story....   if you like upload your flightlog using this link > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

mayby the log will explain what happend.

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 7-13 08:18
Hi John,

what a story....   if you like upload your flightlog using this link > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

Hey, JJB, thanks for reading and responding to my request for help which generates a request for more help.  When I use my controller to go to my flight log I see that the log is registered under the name djiuser_iTEEAlk8E25s.  This is a name that I never created or registered.  Was this a name randomly created for me or is it possible that I have a recycled controller that was used previously by someone else whose data was never scrubbed?  This question is raised again when I look at my flight log.  The recorded flights in the log run between 5/7/2020 and 2/7/2020.  I did not begin using my drone until 7/1/2020.  I guess it is possible that I did not properly reset the date on my controller when I activated yet, but it would still be puzzling why the dates of recorded flights are months apart.  However, when I look at the map locations for the flights they are shown as taking place all in my neighborhood, but all the recent ones are not shown at the location where my crash occurred.

Poppa John Posted at 7-13 08:44
Hey, JJB, thanks for reading and responding to my request for help which generates a request for more help.  When I use my controller to go to my flight log I see that the log is registered under the name djiuser_iTEEAlk8E25s.  This is a name that I never created or registered.  Was this a name randomly created for me or is it possible that I have a recycled controller that was used previously by someone else whose data was never scrubbed?  This question is raised again when I look at my flight log.  The recorded flights in the log run between 5/7/2020 and 2/7/2020.  I did not begin using my drone until 7/1/2020.  I guess it is possible that I did not properly reset the date on my controller when I activated yet, but it would still be puzzling why the dates of recorded flights are months apart.  However, when I look at the map locations for the flights they are shown as taking place all in my neighborhood, but all the recent ones are not shown at the location where my crash occurred.

OK, I have now gone back and reviewed earlier flight records and I now do find one that took place at the crash site.  It records a flight taking place on 4/7/2020 (wrong date) of 8:24 seconds.  I will review the entire record and post again what I find out.  I will also try to upload to link that you provided.

JJB* Posted at 7-13 08:18
Hi John,

what a story....   if you like upload your flightlog using this link > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

Sorry to be so needy.  I see a number of options for sharing data about my flight on my controller--FB, WeChat, Moments, Twitter, Tumblr, Weibo, QQ--will one of these apps give me the option to enter the URL you provided or do I need to share via another app?

Poppa John Posted at 7-13 08:54
Sorry to be so needy.  I see a number of options for sharing data about my flight on my controller--FB, WeChat, Moments, Twitter, Tumblr, Weibo, QQ--will one of these apps give me the option to enter the URL you provided or do I need to share via another app?

Do i understand it correct that you use the smart controller?

Not familiar with the SC, its Android so guess your logs are in a sub-folder called FlightRecords?

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 7-13 10:03
Do i understand it correct that you use the smart controller?

Not familiar with the SC, its Android so guess your logs are in a sub-folder called FlightRecords?

Correct. I use the DJI flight controller and found the logs in Flight Records. If I can’t figure out how to upload entire flight log, I will summarize pertinent notices posted in the log.

Poppa John Posted at 7-13 10:26
Correct. I use the DJI flight controller and found the logs in Flight Records. If I can’t figure out how to upload entire flight log, I will summarize pertinent notices posted in the log.

upload your log to > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

JJB* Posted at 7-13 10:55
upload your log to > https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

OK, I think I am now getting a better grip on my Flight Records.  First, the question that I  have with the dates.  For some reason, the dates shown in  my flight log are presented in the European fashion--i.e., day/month/year--so the date presented as 04/07/2020 is actually July 4, 2020.  This is not the date of my ill fated flight, but a flight that I took in the same location--thus, it appears in roughly the same place on my log map.  Unfortunately, the last flight show in the flight log is 05/07/2020--that is , July 5, 2020.  The date of my crash flight was July 11, 2020 and this is not shown in the Flight log which I access through the cache on my DJI controller.  However, when I go to the File Manager app on my Controller and search  Internal Storage for "Flight" it pulls up a file named DJIFlightRecord_2020-07-11_[15-44-50].txt which has 2.14 MB of data.  I also find a file in a folder named MCDatFlightRecords which is named 20-07-11-03-43-35_FLY033.DAT which is sized at 11.35 MG.  This again appears to be the data associated with my fateful flight which took place on July 11.  Why can't I see the data for this flight in the FlightData program of the DJI Go 4 app?

Hello there Poppa John. I am sorry to read and to know what happened to your DJI Mavic 2 Zoom and it is good to know that your have contacted our DJI support team. Rest assured that our DJI support team will do there best to know what happened to the said drone and a proper resolution will be provided. Again, I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for your understanding.

Using the File Manager on my DJI controller and searching for Flight or Flight records I find the following files which appear to be associated with my ill-fated flight by the date used in the file name:

20-07-11-03-43-35_FLY033.DAT
DJIFlightRecord_2020-07-11_[15-44-50].txt
log-2020-07-11.txt

So, two text files and one .DAT file.  When I open this files with a text editor I just see a lot of gibberish.  Why doesn't this flight log appear in the logged flights on my DJI Controller?  Is there anyway that I can open this files and see the data in them?

Poppa John Posted at 7-14 06:07
Using the File Manager on my DJI controller and searching for Flight or Flight records I find the following files which appear to be associated with my ill-fated flight by the date used in the file name:

20-07-11-03-43-35_FLY033.DAT

Just post the FlightRecord txt file if you want some help.

OK--thanks for your offer of help.  As near as I can tell, the DJI forum does not support the uploading of .txt files.  So, I tried to copy the FlightRecord txt file as it appears in my Text Editor and paste it into this post.  Unfortunately, the file is 2.2 MG and I get an error message telling me that I cannot post an item that contains more than 1 MG of data.  Any further suggestions?  I appreciate your offer to help.

Poppa John Posted at 7-14 06:33
OK--thanks for your offer of help.  As near as I can tell, the DJI forum does not support the uploading of .txt files.  So, I tried to copy the FlightRecord txt file as it appears in my Text Editor and paste it into this post.  Unfortunately, the file is 2.2 MG and I get an error message telling me that I cannot post an item that contains more than 1 MG of data.  Any further suggestions?  I appreciate your offer to help.

read post #2

Poppa John Posted at 7-14 06:33
OK--thanks for your offer of help.  As near as I can tell, the DJI forum does not support the uploading of .txt files.  So, I tried to copy the FlightRecord txt file as it appears in my Text Editor and paste it into this post.  Unfortunately, the file is 2.2 MG and I get an error message telling me that I cannot post an item that contains more than 1 MG of data.  Any further suggestions?  I appreciate your offer to help.

No rush ... sometime in the next week or two will be just fine.

You could upload to Phantomhelp and post a link to the report it gives you.
Or you could upload to dropbox or similar and post a link to that.

Labroides Posted at 7-14 07:59
No rush ... sometime in the next week or two will be just fine.

You could upload to Phantomhelp and post a link to the report it gives you.

Is there any way to get a GPS position off the gibberish I see in the text file.  I have hired a scuba diver to look for my drone.  He is coming in a couple of hours, so it there is a way, I would appreciate an urgent response.

Poppa John Posted at 7-14 09:31
Is there any way to get a GPS position off the gibberish I see in the text file.  I have hired a scuba diver to look for my drone.  He is coming in a couple of hours, so it there is a way, I would appreciate an urgent response.

Thanks again for all your help.  I have uploaded my text FlightRecord to the Phantom help site and it has translated the gibberish for me.  Here is the link that PH supplied to share my record--DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com.pdf.  I see that the PH posts the flight log to a Google map which is pretty helpful in determining my splash down point.  Is there any way to view exact GPS coordinates of the last entry?  Many thanks.

Poppa John Posted at 7-14 09:31
Is there any way to get a GPS position off the gibberish I see in the text file.  I have hired a scuba diver to look for my drone.  He is coming in a couple of hours, so it there is a way, I would appreciate an urgent response.

I hope you can retrieve the drone !  Keep us updated !

Poppa John Posted at 7-14 09:56
Thanks again for all your help.  I have uploaded my text FlightRecord to the Phantom help site and it has translated the gibberish for me.  Here is the link that PH supplied to share my record--DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com.pdf.  I see that the PH posts the flight log to a Google map which is pretty helpful in determining my splash down point.  Is there any way to view exact GPS coordinates of the last entry?  Many thanks.

just post the PH link on here, the link to your uploaded log....

Than you get help....

Poppa John Posted at 7-14 09:56
Thanks again for all your help.  I have uploaded my text FlightRecord to the Phantom help site and it has translated the gibberish for me.  Here is the link that PH supplied to share my record--DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com.pdf.  I see that the PH posts the flight log to a Google map which is pretty helpful in determining my splash down point.  Is there any way to view exact GPS coordinates of the last entry?  Many thanks.

Is there any way to view exact GPS coordinates of the last entry?
Yes ... but you have to post a link to the report (not a pdf of the report) so anyone helping you can see the data.

But no rush ... tomorrow or the next day is OK.

So, I have uploaded my Flight Record txt file to PhantomPro4 help and here is the link that I copied to share the file--https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/H7GZE0OKCJ9OCQ8BYFX3.  Hopefully, this is the link to the actual data and not just the .pdf read of the file.  I see the help page also offers a URL to read DAT files.  I will see what that produces.  I hired a dive team yesterday to search for my drone  using the Google map plot of the flight provided by the FlightRecord log.  Although the lake  depth at that location is only about 25', the lake water is clouded by algae and particulate and at 25' deep there is no visibility and you can only search a grid by feel.  After about an hour of searching, they were not able to locate the drone.  If I can get an exact GPS location of the splash down, I can put that into my Garmin ECHO-CHIRP fish finder (sonar) and search at that location for any bright reflection off the bottom that could be my drone.  I don't think the dive team has a GPS system on their dive boat, but I could use a laser range finder to describe the splash down point by exact distances from the shore and two nearby docks that might help get their search to the right location.  So, an exact GPS position might help.

Poppa John Posted at 7-15 06:19
So, I have uploaded my Flight Record txt file to PhantomPro4 help and here is the link that I copied to share the file--https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/H7GZE0OKCJ9OCQ8BYFX3.  Hopefully, this is the link to the actual data and not just the .pdf read of the file.  I see the help page also offers a URL to read DAT files.  I will see what that produces.  I hired a dive team yesterday to search for my drone  using the Google map plot of the flight provided by the FlightRecord log.  Although the lake  depth at that location is only about 25', the lake water is clouded by algae and particulate and at 25' deep there is no visibility and you can only search a grid by feel.  After about an hour of searching, they were not able to locate the drone.  If I can get an exact GPS location of the splash down, I can put that into my Garmin ECHO-CHIRP fish finder (sonar) and search at that location for any bright reflection off the bottom that could be my drone.  I don't think the dive team has a GPS system on their dive boat, but I could use a laser range finder to describe the splash down point by exact distances from the shore and two nearby docks that might help get their search to the right location.  So, an exact GPS position might help.

So, an exact GPS position might help.
The splash point was at :  37.20088   -79.72920
The drone was hovering at the time so it shouldn't have gone far from that.

Sorry, I cannot point to an exact cause for the incident but there was a serious issue with the drone not responding to control inputs.
There appear to be some problems with the controller.
The left stick calibration is a little off so that when centred it is indicating 1017 when it should be 1024.

When you pushed the left stick full forward at 1:15.1, it had no effect and the drone failed to climb.
You applied full right stick at 1:12.8 but the drone did not move.
When you tried SPort Mode a little later, moving the joysticks made no difference to the drone.
At around 6:29 the drone rotated 30 degrees anti-clockwise without any rudder input.
The cause of this is puzzling.
A little later, when you have rudder input, the drone did not rotate.
After 8:58 it rotated clockwise slowly 40 degrees colckwise, again without corresponding joystick input.

Have seen this behavior from the Smart controller before, it seems it's a bug, the uplink to the drone stops ... but it can be reestablished by a SC restart, the downlink was 100% the whole flight though ...

The flight log look normal at a quick glance, all your stick inputs are there & all the telemetrics ... what gives it away is that the AC doesn't listen to the commands. It can look odd that the AC actually travel quite a bit, actually in total 169m ... but that is due to the OD sensors, your boat pushes it around. Once you go to Sport the AC is pretty stationary.

You can see the boat & AC "dance" here below ...

1: AC path
2: SC path
3: Yellow star = Homepoint
4: Blue/Green star = SC position when the log ends
5: Green bar indicate the AC with a westerly heading direction when the log ends



What made your AC to go under was the fact that it wasn't more than 19,4m from your home point when you restarted the SC ... that made the AC to go for failsafe RTH, which in your case meant landing as from a screen shot from the manual below ...



The last recorded position in the log was ...

Hey, Labroides and Slup, you guys are Princes for responding so helpfully with all your analysis.  I will have to learn to do this for myself.  I will take the exact splash point and maneuver my fishing boat to that point with my Garmin ECHO-CHIRP fish finder and see if I get something that looks like a hot return from my sonar on the bottom.  Perhaps with a more exact position, I could entice the divers back to once again grope the bottom looking for my drone.  I guess at this point I will share your analysis with DJI.  Perhaps I will have a warranty claim for a malfunctioning drone even if I can't claim under  my insurance because of my inability to recover the drone.

Again, you guys are the best!

Perhaps I will have a warranty claim for a malfunctioning drone

It wasn't a drone failure ... it was a buggy SC that made you lose the uplink to the drone.

Poppa John Posted at 7-15 09:59
Hey, Labroides and Slup, you guys are Princes for responding so helpfully with all your analysis.  I will have to learn to do this for myself.  I will take the exact splash point and maneuver my fishing boat to that point with my Garmin ECHO-CHIRP fish finder and see if I get something that looks like a hot return from my sonar on the bottom.  Perhaps with a more exact position, I could entice the divers back to once again grope the bottom looking for my drone.  I guess at this point I will share your analysis with DJI.  Perhaps I will have a warranty claim for a malfunctioning drone even if I can't claim under  my insurance because of my inability to recover the drone.

Again, you guys are the best!

Hi Poppa John,

In addition to the analyses of Labroides and Slup my different notes:

I see 9x this in your log "Braking now. Return sticks to midpoints. then continue flying"

If this message is shown; craft has already stopped and with all inputs given it will not respond at all. Only after both sticks are set to ZERO momentarily craft will respond again on user inputs. Indeed your left up/down stick was not at ZERO when centralized, so craft will not respond whatever (new) input is given.

See the blue line in the chart as up/dn input   blue all the time (zero = not zero), red line is fdw/aft input, see the red line is zero (gray line) at zero.

So my conclusion is that due to a braking now issue (false or true sensing obstacle) ; and the fact that never for both sticks zero+zero was achieved, software blocked all further inputs. So imo no upload fail.
DJI should analsye this and alter the zero zero for both sticks. (make it <= 5% input for both)

Perhaps more info in the DAT file, look for FLY033.DAT on your SC. (share a link to that file if you like)

cheers
JJB

So my conclusion is that due to a braking now issue (false or true sensing obstacle) ; and the fact that never for both sticks zero+zero was achieved, software blocked all further inputs. So imo no upload fail.


Plausable, but I doubt it mainly due to 2 reasons ... switching to Sport should stop a behavior like that, & the AC didn't listen to stick commands then either eventhough no OD wasn't active then. Also that I've seen several instances of SC freezing up before in the past & in those cases a restart of the SC (with triggering of failsafe RTH) have reestablished the connection. The fatal here was that the AC was to close to the HP & over water.

Again, my thanks to both of you for your analysis of my crash log.  I will share the log with the DJI folks while pursuing my replacement claim under my insurance.  I will also try to locate drone with sonar and see if I can convince dive team to give it another shot.

DJI Stephen Posted at 7-13 22:43
Hello there Poppa John. I am sorry to read and to know what happened to your DJI Mavic 2 Zoom and it is good to know that your have contacted our DJI support team. Rest assured that our DJI support team will do there best to know what happened to the said drone and a proper resolution will be provided. Again, I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for your understanding.

have posted the Flight Log for my fatal flight on the DJI User Forum Support page and gotten very helpful responses from two Forum Users.  See following link for the conversation--
https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... ;page=1#pid2215768.

Conclusion appears to be that DJI controller was malfunctioning and drone was not responding to commands.

I would like to have my drone replaced through the insurance that I purchased.  At present, however, all efforts to retrieve the drone from its watery grave have failed.  If drone cannot be replaced through insurance, I would like to pursue a warranty claim.

Please advise me how you think I should proceed.

Again, my hearty thanks to those expert users who have generously been helping me to find out what went wrong on my flight.  JJB suggested sharing my flight data log might provide some answers.  I have uploaded the file to my Google Drive.  Here is the link:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R7r3K-J_E-7OEvBTPHDGoTzWxrLinh_b/view?usp=sharing.  If you learn anything more from reviewing this file, please let me know.  Again, thanks for all your help.

Poppa John Posted at 7-15 12:50
Again, my hearty thanks to those expert users who have generously been helping me to find out what went wrong on my flight.  JJB suggested sharing my flight data log might provide some answers.  I have uploaded the file to my Google Drive.  Here is the link:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R7r3K-J_E-7OEvBTPHDGoTzWxrLinh_b/view?usp=sharing.  If you learn anything more from reviewing this file, please let me know.  Again, thanks for all your help.

If you learn anything more from reviewing this file, please let me know.


Well ... the DAT doesn't record any stick commands at all, which then still make me think that the uplink from the SC was frozen.


But some thing else is going on ... looking at all data that register the AC's yaw movements something odd appears. Now this is a Mavic 2 ... & they have the unique feature to prevent yaw errors due to a magnetic disturbed launch spot by re-initialize the imuYaw when the flight controller sees a large disagreement between the magYaw (compass) & the imuYaw. Think this is what we see here ... but the graphs doesn't move together in a nice way.


A short explanation of the chart ...


The green is imuYaw 1 which was used in this flight, this is initialized to the degrees that the blue (compass) reads off at power on


The blue is magYaw (the compass)


The black is the gyro, it register all turning movements & starts at 0 & then adds or subtracts depending on neg or pos turn, but shape wise should follow the others.


The red is VIOYaw, it's a kind of compass out from the VPS sensors that can register turns by reading off the ground below ... choppy here due to water.


If everything is healthy green, blue & red should follow each other well, showing approx. the same degree value but that isn't the case here. At 387sec into the flight the green (imuYaw) adjust itself rapidly, most probably the function that re-initialize the imuYaw as the disagreement (between imu & compass) just before had been up to dangerous 60 degrees threatening the AC with a flyaway. The disagreement there after is within reasonable levels not risking a flyaway, but the green & blue doesn't follow each other in a nice way & the red is way off as long as it works over the water surface. This can be a phenomenon worth mensioning to DJI also ...  


Then we have a dark green graph for signal strenghts ... which show 4-5 of 5 possible. Meaning full downlink.


Then also all stick commands ... Rudder, Throttle, Aileron & Elevator ... all show 0 value all over, no commands reach the AC.

OK, again thanks for your expert analysis.  An I being presumptive to assume that DJI techs are reading this as they review my claim?

slup Posted at 7-15 14:27
If you learn anything more from reviewing this file, please let me know.

Hi Slup,

Interesting to read your text.

About the zero values for the RC ; throughout the whole flight all 4 channels are written with zero.

If zero means commands does not reach the drone, than this drone could not be in the air....

Normally these 4 values are written with empty strings at powering up, followed by zero`s guess after initialising of the IMU.

Had a check in time flight (if upstream data was not reached by drone) ; all mode switch changes and mobile app changes (disabling OA etc) were received, but no reaction on stick commands?  So i am not sure if the upstream was not functioning.

I see al lot (many many) of vision errors in the DAT : [L-VISION][VIO]RECEIVE VIO DATA BEFOR CURRENT TS
What if the vision system is blocking the stick inputs?

Indeed a magn error :  00231.088 |  03 m  51.0 s |    15556 [L-FDI]NS(0) FUSION(1): FAULT ON . MAGN_HEADING_ERR_LARGE

Well, DJI should explain this flight.


Ofcourse no discussion why it landed in the water at the end.

cheers
JJB

Poppa John Posted at 7-15 15:09
OK, again thanks for your expert analysis.  An I being presumptive to assume that DJI techs are reading this as they review my claim?

I hope they do, but officially DJI ignores all non-DJI analyse data and programs.

cheers
JJB

JJB* Posted at 7-15 23:24
Hi Slup,

Interesting to read your text.

Yeah ... it's a really strange behavior, that it got airborne can be somewhat explained by that he uses auto takeoff, & the vision messages in the event log stream with that it was over water, but ...

The last time I saw this everything was normal regarding the AC but it didn't listen to any SC commands (flight mode changes, stick inputs etc) at all, but the downlink was up & running equal to this case.

Hard to explain this fully. But it wasn't a pilot error that the incident started ... & the unfortunate outcome was a result of bad circumstances.

Hi slup,

I read your posts with interest and have just uploaded my flight log for you to take a look at if you wouldnt mind, notwithstanding DJI are also looking into our issue.

In summary, our Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual has developed an issue that whenever RTH is enabled, the drone 'bucks' quite erratically through the air.  I only happens with RTH, with manual flight, no issues are experienced.   We have returned the M2ED to DJI for them to investigate and they loaned us another M2ED as temp loan as well.

We experienced exactly the same issue with their loaned M2ED as well, there was a thought that it may have been an issue with our Smart Controller, so we tried the loan M2ED with a standard controller and the same issue was experienced.

Would appreciate any clues you may be able to get from our logs.

Regards

Gary

Again, I cannot voice enough thanks to those of you who read my post and responded with such expert analysis on the cause of my misfortune.  Since you took such an interest, I thought you all deserved an update on the situation with my drone.  The Scruggs Fire and Rescue dive team did not give up on their quest to find my drone in the murky waters of Smith Mountain Lake.  Although the first attempt was unsuccessful, they returned to the GPS coordinates of my crash two more times and, as they say, the third time's the charm.  Feeling the bottom in the pitch black they found my drone tucked in behind a log and returned it to my possession.  I now can pursue my insurance claim by returning the damaged drone.
But this experience gives rise to a further question on which I would like to request your advice.  I got the impression from some of the comments on the cause of my crash that this might be due in part to the drone operating over water rather than "terra firma"--a surface that is rippling and in motion.  That this condition might cause some "visual" problems with the drone and contribute to it becoming disoriented.  Am I on to something here?  Are these drone capable of operating safely over water?  Any comments or experience with this?

A final further update on this situation.  Thanks, no doubt, in part to all your expert analysis, DJI finally did the right thing and replaced my Drone, Smart Controller and even my battery under a warranty claim--no need to use my insurance policy and pay a deductible.  So, I am back flying again.  Thanks for all your help.

Poppa John Posted at 10-27 07:27
A final further update on this situation.  Thanks, no doubt, in part to all your expert analysis, DJI finally did the right thing and replaced my Drone, Smart Controller and even my battery under a warranty claim--no need to use my insurance policy and pay a deductible.  So, I am back flying again.  Thanks for all your help.

Hi Poppa John,

Good news for you! and for DJI ofcourse.

Happy many landings,
Cheers
JJB

Poppa John Posted at 10-27 07:27
A final further update on this situation.  Thanks, no doubt, in part to all your expert analysis, DJI finally did the right thing and replaced my Drone, Smart Controller and even my battery under a warranty claim--no need to use my insurance policy and pay a deductible.  So, I am back flying again.  Thanks for all your help.

Great news!

Happy flying...