After spending more time than most researching my next drone acquisition, I pulled the trigger and purchased the DJI Mavic Air2 Fly More bundle last October 2020 from Amazon. After receiving my new drone, I immediately took it out for a test flight (after charging) in the parking lot at work where I was pleasantly surprised with this model's performance. Later that evenening I proceeded to run through all the updates which I was being prompted to complete within the DJI Fly app. The next day I attempted my next flight only to encounter jittery camera operation which not only affected recording, but made the aircraft very difficult to fly with the intermittant fpv leaving you without knowing the orientation or location. After several attempts to reload the firmware under the guidance of DJI Support, it was suggested that I had purchased a defective unit and I was advised to go through Amazon to have it replaced under warranty.

After receiving the replacement (complete bundle), I again updated the firmware and was able to complete several successful flights, that is until... I was filming a subject climbing a small waterfall with the aircraft simply hovering to capture his ascent. All of a sudden the view on the tablet went black and a message on the top of the DJI Fly app advised me that RC signal had been lost. Looking up as the aircraft was only a mere 100 meters or so from me, my worst fears were confirmed, no sight of it in the last known position. The next day a member of the team located the aircraft submerged near the base of the waterfall. Upon viewing the footage from the memory card I witnessed the aircraft suddenly climb, impact a nearby overhanging cedar branch, then tumble into the waterfall. Asuming that water may have splashed up and triggered the obstacle avoidance on the bottom of the aircraft, and the lack of a top obstacle avoidance sensor, I again called DJI Support for their input. After explaining what had happened, I was again asked to contact Amazon first to see if they would again replace it under warranty, which to my complete surprise they did just that.

December 2020 my now third replacement unit arrives (complete bundle) and after several updates, etc. I was off flying again! Over the next few months the aircraft performed well and I was able to complete several filming projects, a few even pushing the aircraft to distances of 8km from me. That is until... at the begining of May 2021 I was capturing some b-roll of rock formations on the side of a 600' rock face. It was a gorgeous sunny day in remote Northern Ontario with the aircraft hovering while recording just under 2 kms away from me, straight line of sight. All of a sudden again the screen goes black with a message stating that RC signal had been lost. Not really concerned, I sat down and proceeded to wait for the aircraft to initiate its RTH function and return to the point of departure. Almost an hour later, no aircraft.

Despite the fact that I had purchased a DJI Care package and could simply request a replacement under my plan, a couple friends convinced me to set out to attempt to find the aircraft at its last known position which had been recorded in the DJI Fly App. What an adventure! We spent the afternoon scaling near verticle cliffs and actually found the aircraft 3 or 4 hours later, mind you in pretty rough shape and no longer airworthy. After returning home I proceeded to review the footage from the recovered memory card. The footage matched what I had already viewed on the tablet in its cached video files up to the point of signal loss. After signal loss, rather than perform a RTH manouver as expected, the aircraft descended several meters (yes I am aware that this may have been to the altitude set for this manouver) and instead of proceeding to fly a track back to the point of departure, it flew sideways in almost the opposite direction from the point of departure directly into a rock face on the side of the mountain. As a result of the impact, it was unable to keep in flight and tumbled a few hundred meters down the rock face to where we had located it, then kept recording until the battery power was exhausted.

Yet a third call to DJI Support who after I had ran through everything above, seemed just as mystified as I was and actually commented that he had no questions to ask that I hadn't already answered. He stated that I could use my DJI Care Refresh to have the aircraft replaced but I voiced my concerns that at this point I no longer had any faith in this model. I asked if I could simply pay whatever difference to upgrade to the new Air 2S which hopefully I would have better luck with. He stated that certainly seemed like an option and that if I would stay on the line, he would send a message to the appropriate department with my request. Returning to the call, he stated that I should receive an email response with the next 24-48 hours.

A week goes by with no response received so I call back in. After explaining everything yet again, I am informed that an upgrade would not be an option, that I had to send the aircraft in for a repair estimate at which time I could use my DJI Care Refresh to have it either repaired or replaced. After the call I was sent a shipping label and instructions to send the aircraft and controller from Ontario Canada to Texas.


After multiple attempts to get the package across the border throughout June, they just finally received the package in Texas last week. Monday I received an email requesting a description of the event, copies of flight logs, etc. which I immediately replied to, providing everything they asked for including a side by side video of both the cached video footage from the tablet and video footage recorded to the memory card. Yesterday I received another email advising that they had forwarded the information I had provide to the appropriate department. I assumed they found something in the logs that raised a few questions.

Today I recieved another email advising that the repairs required would not be covered under warranty. It went on to state that I had two options, #1 was to simply pay $374 USD to complete repairs or #2 to use my DJI Care Refresh "If you want to replace your product for $69.00 with DJI Care Refresh, please click "Use Care Refresh" to apply."

Ok... obviously I clicked on the "Use Care Refresh" and was taken to their website and presented with an invoice for... $121.00 USD. Wait... what... picked up the phone and called into DJI Support to find out what was going on. The rep I spoke with looks at my case then advises that there is an addition $52.00 charge to replace the remote controller's "core board module". The Mr. Nice Guy fades away into the background and I continually apologized for the level of frustration which I found myself overcome with. I explained that the remote controller was NOT involved in the crash, had been kept in a waterproof hard case in a foam compartment cut exactly to its size, and that I am super anal with the care of any of my equipment when storing, transporting and operating. She proceeded to read me a report from the repair department on the issue found with the controller "failed user command... etc."

I then proceeded to inform her that I in fact have been a communications and security systems installation and service technician for over 30 years. What she just inadvertently did was solve the mystery... from my many years of experience, it sounds like the remote controller had a defective core board module which in all likelyhood was the reason I lost signal with the aircraft and may have also been the cause of the aircraft receiving signals to descend before flying sideways directly into the rock face. A flight behaviour which does not at all sound like anything which engineers would program into the aircraft to complete a successful RTH manouver.

Am I losing my mind or is it that obvious that for some reason after purchasing numerous DJI products without any issues, I finally have a product with an issue and they are just simply jerking me around? In my mind, although I was willing to pay the $69 to use my DJI Care Refresh package that thankfully I purchased, this case more than likely should be treated as a warranty claim.

I'd be interested in any input from the DJI Community may be willing to provide. I am by no means a professional when it comes to piloting drones, but I do hold a recreational pilot licence and do have some skills. Here is the side by side footage, app cached and memory card footage: https://youtu.be/1y7rlELSR8Y

Much Appreciated!

I viewed your YT footage and although interesting video footage, it doesn't provide any answers that pop out to me.  There are some folks on here capable of analyzing your flight logs and telemetry data, since you recovered your SD card and have your cached video files.  Perhaps they will chime in and offer to help solve your mystery.  Good luck!

K9JDN Posted at 7-14 12:45
I viewed your YT footage and although interesting video footage, it doesn't provide any answers that pop out to me.  There are some folks on here capable of analyzing your flight logs and telemetry data, since you recovered your SD card and have your cached video files.  Perhaps they will chime in and offer to help solve your mystery.  Good luck!

Thanks for you input

You could upload your log file to  http://phantomhelp.com/logviewer/

from my many years of experience, it sounds like the remote controller had a defective core board module which in all likelyhood was the reason I lost signal with the aircraft and may have also been the cause of the aircraft receiving signals to descend before flying sideways directly into the rock face.
From my years of experience analysing flight data, it sounds to me like you are just guessing without having any definite facts about your incidents.
A couple of points from your incidents that stand out are:
1.  You are flying around cliff lines, where your GPS satellite reception is likely to be reduced
2.  You are flying close to obstacles at a distance too great to see the drone and its position relative to the obstacles
3.  You aren't losing signal, you are losing the drone which leaves the app telling you there's no signal (because there's no drone).

Your idea about a faulty controller is about the least likely explanation for your incidents.

You never found out what happened to cause the first incident and now you are guessing about a second one.
Do yourself a favour and post the recorded flight data from both incidents and I'll see what story it tells.


Go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
It has instructions to find the .txt file from your phone or tablet which you can upload to that site
Upload it and it gives you a summary of the flight data.
Post a link to that summary even if the report looks empty or just a couple of lines of garbage.

Or just post the .txt file

"Your idea about a faulty controller is about the least likely explanation for your incidents."

But since DJI reported discovering that failure, why not? It was not his diagnose. Does DJI require the controller to be send back for a crash? Is this the same original controller for all flights?

Labroides Posted at 7-14 16:39
from my many years of experience, it sounds like the remote controller had a defective core board module which in all likelyhood was the reason I lost signal with the aircraft and may have also been the cause of the aircraft receiving signals to descend before flying sideways directly into the rock face.
From my years of experience analysing flight data, it sounds to me like you are just guessing without having any definite facts about your incidents.
A couple of points from your incidents that stand out are:

By checking out his video, it's clear that he lost signal first long before the crash.

Honestly, I think that something is wrong on your controller. And the GPS might not be on your side at the moment. The RC loss seems to be too often. And this should be considered as a warranty issue instead of using your DJI Care. However maybe you can upload your flight log so that we can have a better analyzation on this.

One thing that I've noticed is that your drone usually wouldn't descend first in RTH, at least this is not the behavior on my Air 2S. If it's above the altitude set, then it would go fly horizontally until it reaches the surrounding area of your home point.

So, strange things here:

1. Why did you lose the signal? Was the signal bar full before it dropped out? Generally you shouldn't be losing signal all of a sudden if it was full.
2. Why did the drone decend first? This is not the default behavior of MA2, even if you have set the RTH altitude lower than the current altitude. Did you lose the GPS? Was there any GPS signal warnings? Was there ANY warnings like wind or gps or other strange things?
3. Why did the drone drift left? Was it because of GPS or drone misbehaviour or user misinput? Did you descend manually or push the stick to left after you lose the signal?

These questions could only be answered by flight logs. Please upload it if you could.

GaryDoug Posted at 7-14 17:56
"Your idea about a faulty controller is about the least likely explanation for your incidents."

But since DJI reported discovering that failure, why not? It was not his diagnose. Does DJI require the controller to be send back for a crash? Is this the same original controller for all flights?

DJI have made mistakes before.
Rather than accept that's the cause, I would always want to start by going back and look at the recorded flight data to see what that says and work from there.

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-14 20:16
Honestly, I think that something is wrong on your controller. And the GPS might not be on your side at the moment. The RC loss seems to be too often. And this should be considered as a warranty issue instead of using your DJI Care. However maybe you can upload your flight log so that we can have a better analyzation on this.

One thing that I've noticed is that your drone usually wouldn't descend first in RTH, at least this is not the behavior on my Air 2S. If it's above the altitude set, then it would go fly horizontally until it reaches the surrounding area of your home point.

Thanks for your input FC... to answer your questions:

1. Signal Bar was full
2. No I didn't get any warnings... not even the "weak" signal or anything about GPS
3. What you see in the video after signal was lost was totally the drone... I simply power cycled the controller to see if it was just the app, but as in the past, shouldn't the drone have just hovered there waiting for a command or simply started the RTH?

I'm going to attempt to upload the flight logs as so many of you have recommended. In the meantime, here is the complete dump I was asked to send to DJI for review. It includes every flight but the one in question with the crash is the last flight in May:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UM7MxryLtm6gHS6d5tzKfgbt3MS7YKW1/view?usp=sharing

Thank you phantomhelp.com!!! that was actually pretty painless lol

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/ENL1BGUM9YFQ96EDVV25

I've uploaded the flight log for the last flight of the second drone 11/28/2020 which ended up ascending, hitting a tree branch and plunged into a waterfall:

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/OXGNLQO8J89DKF8Z55WR

Again, doesn't look like any warnings at time of signal loss for that drone as well. Basically hovering and for some reason at a -16 foot altitude, which it obviously wasn't and only 205 feet from the controller. Home point is not even where I was flying either.

Bruce_Clement Posted at 7-15 10:45
Thank you phantomhelp.com!!! that was actually pretty painless lol

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/ENL1BGUM9YFQ96EDVV25

It was a gorgeous sunny day in remote Northern Ontario with the aircraft hovering while recording just under 2 kms away from me, straight line of sight. All of a sudden again the screen goes black with a message stating that RC signal had been lost.

The flight data explains the loss of signal quite simply.
It's not a fault on the part of the controller.
From 11:16.6 you were flying slowly and hovering at 100 metres.
At 11:40.2 you descended, coming town to 93 metres.
At 11:44 you briefly pulled the right stick right back, which caused the drone to accelerate backwards from zero and reaching a speed of 6 metres/sec when the data ends and signal was lost.
There was a warning about weak signal, just as you started descending, 7 seconds later the data ends.

Signal was lost because you didn't have a clear, unobstructed line of sight to the drone.
It was 93 metres higher than launch point, but you had descended, putting some high ground between the drone and controller as shown in the attached figure from Google Earth.
You had flown beyong a ridge approx 100 metres higher than your launchpoint at a height of about 100 metres and then descended a further 7 metres.

Not really concerned, I sat down and proceeded to wait for the aircraft to initiate its RTH function and return to the point of departure. Almost an hour later, no aircraft.
We have to fill in a few blanks to guess what might have happened after signal was lost.
What we do know is:

Your drone was very close to the indicated height of the ridgeline when it lost signal.
Any trees on the ridgeline would have pushed the height of the obstacle even higher.
Your RTH height was set at 102 metres, only 9 metres above the level the drone was at when signal was lost.
Two seconds after losing signal, the Mavic would have attempted to retrace its path for up to 60 seconds.
If it was unable to regain signal, it would then rise to the RTH height of 102 metres and fly towards home.

Google Earth indicates the ridgeline was about 100 metres.
This number is approximate and does not include tree height.
Your flight data also shows that there was a problem with your obstacle avoidance sensors, so they could not be relied on to avoid obstacles.

I can't see any reason to suspect a problem with the controller and the flight environment and data seem to make it clear what happened up there.

The red dot shows where signal was lost.
The yellow line indicates the RTH path back to home and the line of sight to the end of data.
The red arrow shows the highest land under the RTH flightpath.

Bruce_Clement Posted at 7-15 11:26
I've uploaded the flight log for the last flight of the second drone 11/28/2020 which ended up ascending, hitting a tree branch and plunged into a waterfall:

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/OXGNLQO8J89DKF8Z55WR

I've uploaded the flight log for the last flight of the second drone 11/28/2020 which ended up ascending, hitting a tree branch and plunged into a waterfall:
You were flying at low level under tree canopy and in a creek valley for the whole flight.
As a result your GPS reception was marginal, satellite numbers were low and for the last 4 seconds of data, GPS health was <4, which means the flight controller had no confidence that position data was accurate.
The drone never achieved 5/5 GPS health during the flight.

There was an early warning that lighting was inadequate for obstacle avoidance.
The last half-second of the data does show a collision with something, after which the drone was tumbling and losing height.

I don't see any indication of the drone ascending mysteriously.
There is a small climb of approx 2 ft just before the collision, but this corresponds exactly with your joystick input at the time.

Again, doesn't look like any warnings at time of signal loss for that  drone as well.
It's not unusual for signal to be suddenly, without any warning.
It's not clear in this case whether it was lost because line of sight was lost or if the battery came out causing a loss of power.

Basically hovering and for some reason at a -16 foot  altitude, which it obviously wasn't and only 205 feet from the  controller. Home point is not even where I was flying either.
I'm not sure why you say that the altitude was obviously not the -16 ft indicated.
The altitude during the flight appears to be reasonably accurate and corresponds well with the VPS altitude readings.
Only 200 ft from the controller makes no difference if the drone hits something as the data indicates it did.
Your homepoint is likely to be inaccurate because of poor GPS reception where you flew.
How far from the actual homepoint do you think it was?

At the distance you were from the drone, and the kind of environment you flew in, you couldn't have had a clear view of the drone and how close it was to nearby obstacles.
If you are going to fly in sketchy locations, close to obstacles like that, you cannot rely on the screen view alone.
With the wide angle of the camera length, obstacles are closer than they appear.

I don't find any mystery about this incident.

Bruce_Clement Posted at 7-15 10:38
Thanks for your input FC... to answer your questions:

1. Signal Bar was full

By points that you've mentioned, I think that it's a problem on the DJI side. They shouldn't be charging you fees then. Because the drone isn't doing an RTH maneuver. It's simply losing control.

The correct automatic RTH should be:
1. drone hovers and waits for reconnection
2. reconnection timed out, drone tries to reverse the route for a short distance to regain connection
3. go RTH, if higher than RTH altitude then just go home, otherwise rise up the aircraft and then go home.

By the behavior of the drone, I believe that there's something wrong with your drone or your controller.
Edit: no after reviewing the flight log it seems that DJI isn't doing wrong.

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-16 02:02
By points that you've mentioned, I think that it's a problem on the DJI side. They shouldn't be charging you fees then. Because the drone isn't doing an RTH maneuver. It's simply losing control.

The correct automatic RTH should be:

However, after the analysis on your flight log:

1. You did made some input to make the drone dive and then pan left, at 11min 45.4s of your flight you even full throttled it. I'm not sure why, maybe you panicked because of losing image transmission or maybe something touched your stick without you noticing, like if accidentally touched the sticks?

2. With that input, your drone did exactly what was shown on the recovered footage: it dived and then crashed.

The GPS signal however, looks healthy all along. The only issue is that it lost the image transmission during the flight where it is about 2 kilometers away from the homepoint, and I think that's completely normal for sudden drop in RC & video transmission signal with that distance.

So for the flight log, I retract what I've said that it was DJI's fault. I think it's a user error now...

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-16 02:02
By points that you've mentioned, I think that it's a problem on the DJI side. They shouldn't be charging you fees then. Because the drone isn't doing an RTH maneuver. It's simply losing control.

The correct automatic RTH should be:

Edit: no after reviewing the flight log it seems that DJI isn't doing wrong.
You can go back and edit your posts.
There's no need to leave things if you've changed your mind.

Labroides Posted at 7-16 02:41
Edit: no after reviewing the flight log it seems that DJI isn't doing wrong.
You can go back and edit your posts.
There's no need to leave things if you've changed your mind.

Well that's like I admit my mistake in public and not trying to cover it..

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-16 07:08
Well that's like I admit my mistake in public and not trying to cover it..

Once you realise it isn't correct, why should anyone else have to read it?

My rule of thumb is to always fly above my takeoff point and above the horizon as much as possible.  Never had an issue as a result.  The MA2 is a highly reliable bird in my opinion.

Labroides Posted at 7-15 22:30
It was a gorgeous sunny day in remote Northern Ontario with the aircraft hovering while recording just under 2 kms away from me, straight line of sight. All of a sudden again the screen goes black with a message stating that RC signal had been lost.

The flight data explains the loss of signal quite simply.

I totally appreciate your input... but... if that was in fact the case why did the drone descend after signal was lost, then fly sideways into the rock face. It simply doesn't make sense. If I had been able to operate the drone after loosing video signal, I would have instinctively attempted to back away from the rock face. Either way, descending and flying sideways is not RTH behaviour as mentioned in this thread. As for loosing signal 7 mins earlier than the crash, I wouldn't have been able to fly and have cached video of that portion of the flight. So confusing.

Labroides Posted at 7-16 00:09
I've uploaded the flight log for the last flight of the second drone 11/28/2020 which ended up ascending, hitting a tree branch and plunged into a waterfall:
You were flying at low level under tree canopy and in a creek valley for the whole flight.
As a result your GPS reception was marginal, satellite numbers were low and for the last 4 seconds of data, GPS health was

I was literally across the pool at the base of the waterfall with eyes on the drone. Not sure I am reading the logs right as -16' does not seem to be a valid altitude and it was that way for a significant portion of the log. The last entry in the log shows 10 sats. Where are you seeing <6?

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-16 02:19
However, after the analysis on your flight log:

1. You did made some input to make the drone dive and then pan left, at 11min 45.4s of your flight you even full throttled it. I'm not sure why, maybe you panicked because of losing image transmission or maybe something touched your stick without you noticing, like if accidentally touched the sticks?

The message generated in the app was "RC signal lost" at the time. I had no reason to command it to descend nor fly sideways and stand by my statement. If anything I would have instinctively backed away from the rock face in an attempt to regain signal if possible but there is nothing in the log that I can see to indicate that.

Thank you to everyone for their input, it truly is very much appreciated. The original intention of my post was to find out if anyone else was having issues as well. The fact that DJI has determined that I need to spend $52 to repair a controller that is less than 6 months old and I basically treated with white gloves, leaves me to wonder if my decision to purchase this product at the $1,600 CAD price tag was a wise one. Even though it isn't a high end product in their line up, it definitely isn't at the bottom either. Again thanks all!

Northwood Posted at 7-16 09:15
My rule of thumb is to always fly above my takeoff point and above the horizon as much as possible.  Never had an issue as a result.  The MA2 is a highly reliable bird in my opinion.

It makes no difference to your drone whether the altitude is positive or negative.
There's nothing wrong with flying down from a high point.

BClement Posted at 7-16 12:04
I totally appreciate your input... but... if that was in fact the case why did the drone descend after signal was lost, then fly sideways into the rock face. It simply doesn't make sense. If I had been able to operate the drone after loosing video signal, I would have instinctively attempted to back away from the rock face. Either way, descending and flying sideways is not RTH behaviour as mentioned in this thread. As for loosing signal 7 mins earlier than the crash, I wouldn't have been able to fly and have cached video of that portion of the flight. So confusing.

but... if that was in fact the case why did the drone descend after signal was lost, then fly sideways into the rock face.

I cannot explain what happened when there's no data to show it.
But I have analysed your data and it clearly shows that you lost signal because you descended until a mass of rock was blocking your signal path.
The descending could well be the descent that you commanded, which caused the drone to come down behind the ridge.
Your drone was close to the cliff and could well have lost GPS after the  data ends, in which case it would have lost horizontal position holding  and been subject to drifting on any breeze.
Your drone didn't return, because you didn't have the RTH height set to clear the ridgeline and trees.

It simply doesn't make sense. If I had been able to operate the drone after loosing video signal, I would have instinctively attempted to back away from the rock face.
That's the thing about flying behind rocky ridges.
You lose vision and control signal and cannot control the drone.

Either way, descending and flying sideways is not RTH behaviour as mentioned in this thread. As for loosing signal 7 mins earlier than the crash, I wouldn't have been able to fly and have cached video of that portion of the flight. So confusing.
Confusing  .. or confused.
What 7 mins before the crash?
Read what I wrote again:
There was a warning about weak signal, just as you started descending, 7 seconds later the data ends.

BClement Posted at 7-16 12:09
I was literally across the pool at the base of the waterfall with eyes on the drone. Not sure I am reading the logs right as -16' does not seem to be a valid altitude and it was that way for a significant portion of the log. The last entry in the log shows 10 sats. Where are you seeing

I was literally across the pool at the base of the waterfall with eyes on the drone.
What distance was that?
The position data anddistances derived from it are unreliable because you flew with poor GPS.
As well as having dodgy position data, your drone also had lost horizontal position holding, which probably contributed to you crashing it.

Not sure I am reading the logs right as -16' does not seem to be a valid altitude and it was that way for a significant portion of the log.
Was the drone lower than the takeoff point?
Or was it higher?
I've looked closely at the data because you commented in the height.
I cannot see any reason to disbelieve the altitude data and believe the drone was 16 feet lower than where you launched from when it crashed.
The indicated altitude was negative for a significant part of the log because after launching, you descended bleow the level of the launch point and flew at a lower level.

The last entry in the log shows 10 sats. Where are you seeing <6?
I'm looking deeper into the data at things that are not visible in the brief summary that you've looked at.
As well as the number of satellites, the data shows the "GPS Health", an indication of the confidence the flight controller has in the position data it's getting from GPS.
If GPS Health drops below 4/5, that indicates the flight controller has lost confidence in the position data, because there are not enough sats or the few sats it is receiving data from are not sufficiently spread across the sky to give good data.
The location you flew in was very poor for GPS because much of the drone's skyview was blocked by tree cover and flying in a ravine situation.

Looking at the data from these two flights, I can see you have been putting your drone in risky situations without the proper understanding of how to use it safely.
Both crashes were a direct result of inadequate understanding of how your drone works and poor piloting.

BClement Posted at 7-16 12:21
Thank you to everyone for their input, it truly is very much appreciated. The original intention of my post was to find out if anyone else was having issues as well. The fact that DJI has determined that I need to spend $52 to repair a controller that is less than 6 months old and I basically treated with white gloves, leaves me to wonder if my decision to purchase this product at the $1,600 CAD price tag was a wise one. Even though it isn't a high end product in their line up, it definitely isn't at the bottom either. Again thanks all!

The original intention of my post was to find out if anyone else was having issues as well.
You've had exactly the same issues that reckless flyers can encounter.
There was nothing wrong with either drone or controller, and the incidents are 100% down to the way it was flown in dodgy locations.

The fact that DJI has determined that I need to spend $52 to repair a controller that is less than 6 months old and I basically treated with white gloves,
Someone at DJI made a mistake.
There was nothing at all wrong with your controller.

leaves me to wonder if my decision to purchase this product at the $1,600 CAD price tag was a wise one. Even though it isn't a high end product in their line up, it definitely isn't at the bottom either.
Stop trying to blame the incident on the equipment.
That's not where the fault lies.

BClement Posted at 7-16 12:21
Thank you to everyone for their input, it truly is very much appreciated. The original intention of my post was to find out if anyone else was having issues as well. The fact that DJI has determined that I need to spend $52 to repair a controller that is less than 6 months old and I basically treated with white gloves, leaves me to wonder if my decision to purchase this product at the $1,600 CAD price tag was a wise one. Even though it isn't a high end product in their line up, it definitely isn't at the bottom either. Again thanks all!

Hey Clement, I can't be decisive, but:
1. It's either you accidentally made an unintended move
2. or it's the controller sending faulty control which caused the crash.

Maybe that's why DJI suggested you replace the controller too? Because this case is just too weird, if you really didn't send out those dive and pan left commands, then the only one that can be blamed is the controller itself.

Again, the drone was not doing an RTH maneuver. It was following the orders that it received. However who sent those orders, is still a mystery. Maybe someone else jammed it lol.

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-16 20:18
Hey Clement, I can't be decisive, but:
1. It's either you accidentally made an unintended move
2. or it's the controller sending faulty control which caused the crash.

Hey Clement, I can't be decisive, but:
1. It's either you accidentally made an unintended move
2. or it's the controller sending faulty control which caused the crash.
His flight data is quite clear and shows what caused his crashes.
If you can't read flight data, then just read my explanations above.
They are based on analysis of his flight data, including his joystick inputs and the corresponding movement made by the drones.

Maybe that's why DJI suggested you replace the controller too?
Because this case is just too weird, if you really didn't send out those dive and pan left commands, then the only one that can be blamed is the controller itself.
It's quite clear that DJI made a mistake (that happens sometimes).
The data shows no hint of any faulty control signals.
There's not even a tiny shred of evidence for that.

Again, the drone was not doing an RTH maneuver. It was following the orders that it received. However who sent those orders, is still a mystery. Maybe someone else jammed it lol.
There's no need to introduce little green men when his flight data shows exactly what happened.
If you can't read flight data, don't make guesses.
It's not helpful for anyone.

Labroides Posted at 7-16 21:03
Hey Clement, I can't be decisive, but:
1. It's either you accidentally made an unintended move
2. or it's the controller sending faulty control which caused the crash.

The descending could well be the descent that you commanded, which caused the drone to come down behind the ridge.
Your drone was close to the cliff and could well have lost GPS after the  data ends, in which case it would have lost horizontal position holding  and been subject to drifting on any breeze.

If you insist that you're the only one who can read the light log, then simply go for RC.aileron and RC.throttle at the last few seconds to see what happened there. It's nothing about GPS. That's exactly what caused the crash and I'm simply saying that the drone received and followed these commands, which caused the crash, and GPS is unrelated.

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-16 22:00
The descending could well be the descent that you commanded, which caused the drone to come down behind the ridge.
Your drone was close to the cliff and could well have lost GPS after the  data ends, in which case it would have lost horizontal position holding  and been subject to drifting on any breeze.

You are just confusing the issue with your posts.
First you go into detail about things you later changed your mind on ( which is just ridiculous).
Then you mention mysterious control inputs as if they were actual rather just the imagination of the OP.

simply go for RC.aileron and RC.throttle at the last few seconds to see what happened there.
And now you are suggesting I might not have seen the things I went to great length to write about back in post #16 (the one with the pretty picture).
I'd suggest reading that post.

And just leave this sort of thing to those that know what they are doing.
It's hard enough working out what happened and expressing it clearly and dealing with a drone owner who's in denial and looking for ways to blame the equipment, without you muddying the water with posts like you've been making.

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-16 20:18
Hey Clement, I can't be decisive, but:
1. It's either you accidentally made an unintended move
2. or it's the controller sending faulty control which caused the crash.

"Maybe someone else jammed it lol."

All commands to the aircraft are encrypted, so extremely unlikely. In any event, who, out there in the wilds of Ontario, would have the equipment necessary to 'jam' anything, and why would they be doing it?

Labroides Posted at 7-16 22:18
You are just confusing the issue with your posts.
First you go into detail about things you later changed your mind on ( which is just ridiculous).
Then you mention mysterious control inputs as if they were actual rather just the imagination of the OP.

He has recovered the drone's last footage. And the last footage showed things different from what you have said above. Thus you're not as clear as you've stated. After the RC is gone, the drone descended and then panned left, which by the flight log, are all user inputs, instead of obstacle avoidance or RTH.
What really happened there, is that he's drone received remote control inputs after the OP thought the RC signal is gone, and those 2 operations caused the drone to crash directly.

No RTH kick in at all. His drone descended and panned immediately after the video transmission is gone. This is not an RTH behaviour. It's a story of a pilot who crashed his drone MANUALLY without knowing that even without video transmission, the RC still controls his drone, rather than something like bad GPS signal or no obstacle avoidance killed his drone.
MA2 never had sideway OA anyway.
There's nothing wrong with the drone at all IMO, the most likely situation is that OP forgot he did some mistake, the second most likely situation is that he got a broken controller as even DJI engineers suggested him to replace one because of " She proceeded to read me a report from the repair department on the issue found with the controller "failed user command... etc."". While other cases, even if I've mentioned a jamming device, it's not that likely at all, just a joke.

For me, it's like 98.9% probability of user misoperation, and 1% probability of faulty controller, while 0.1% of other stuff like the earth skipped a beat to slap the drone or so.

Geebax Posted at 7-16 22:21
"Maybe someone else jammed it lol."

All commands to the aircraft are encrypted, so extremely unlikely. In any event, who, out there in the wilds of Ontario, would have the equipment necessary to 'jam' anything, and why would they be doing it?

It's just a way to try to not blame it on OP or DJI, even if I think that the problem is most likely to be on OP's side. Losing a drone is pretty sad already. Next time he wouldn't be doing things like this anyway.

FriedChicken_II Posted at 7-17 00:44
He has recovered the drone's last footage. And the last footage showed things different from what you have said above. Thus you're not as clear as you've stated. After the RC is gone, the drone descended and then panned left, which by the flight log, are all user inputs, instead of obstacle avoidance or RTH.
What really happened there, is that he's drone received remote control inputs after the OP thought the RC signal is gone, and those 2 operations caused the drone to crash directly.

We're saying exactly the same thing except in my first analysis post, I hadn't read to the bottom of the OP's extra long post and hadn't seen his video so I'd assumed the drone attempted RTH and made some guesses about what might happen if it attempted to RTH.
But I told the story that's in the data until the data stops, which, it turns out covers the time until the crash which is shown in the video.

He flew close to obstacles in a risky area without being able to see how close his drone was to the obstacles and crashed his drone.
There's no need to mention false control signals, because there were none.
The data explains his flight and the crash.

Labroides Posted at 7-16 22:18
You are just confusing the issue with your posts.
First you go into detail about things you later changed your mind on ( which is just ridiculous).
Then you mention mysterious control inputs as if they were actual rather just the imagination of the OP.

And just leave this sort of thing to those that know what they are doing.
It's hard enough working out what happened and expressing it clearly and dealing with a drone owner who's in denial and looking for ways to blame the equipment, without you muddying the water with posts like you've been making.

In denial... I have flown this exact location twice earlier this year. The reason for the flights was to obtain footage for ice climbers who use this area as it progresses across the seasons. I had no issues on the previous flights. Just because I am relatively new to flying the MA2, you automatically toss these issues at me stating that it HAD to be a reckless operator. What the heck do you buy these drones for? Why does DJI specifically market them for just this type of intended application? How do you determine that I am reckless without even knowing me, the location and flight conditions, etc.? Using the same logic I could make similar assumptions about you regardless of your acquired forum rank, indicated flight distance, etc., but I was simply reaching out to this community in attempt to find out a) if I might be experiencing an issue with the product (DJI states controller, you say they made a mistake, who do I believe?) or whether the application I am using the MA2 for is completely what it is not intended for.

Why would I fly a drone I paid that much for into a rock face? The cached video footage clearly shows me loosing signal well away from the rock face and if you even knew me, obviously would have attempted to recover signal by reversing course. Which by the way, I have several people who witnessed this including the person who was requesting certain views for the project watching over my shoulder as we explored the rock face

You mention about the "Weak image transmission signal. Adjust antennas(Code 80004).; Weak signal. Adjust antennas." message which shows up in the log 7 secs before I lost RC signal, and I am brand new to these logs, but I there was no message indicating any such thing in the app and for the next 7 secs, the message never reappears in the log. How does an op know something is wrong without any indications of such presented? No offense, but these aircraft are marketed to a completely different demographic than you obviously relate to.

Again, no offense, but there is no way you have enough information to judge the operator as being reckless. But... I very much appreciate you taking the time to provide your opinions and I will definitely take them to heart dealing with DJI moving forward.

BClement Posted at 7-19 06:54
And just leave this sort of thing to those that know what they are doing.
It's hard enough working out what happened and expressing it clearly and dealing with a drone owner who's in denial and looking for ways to blame the equipment, without you muddying the water with posts like you've been making.

Just because I am relatively new to flying the  MA2, you automatically toss these issues at me stating that it HAD to be  a reckless operator.
No .. I tossed that in because analysis of your flight data clearly shows that you flew far away, close to a rock wall and didn't realise that you were descendingwhich caused you to lose control signal.
Add to that not setting an appropriate RTH height, which might have caused a crash if the drone didn't crash before it had a chance to RTH.
That adds up to a flyer with overconfidence for his abilities.
In other words .. reckless.

What the heck do you buy these drones for? Why  does DJI specifically market them for just this type of intended  application?
If you want to fly in a risky situation and do it without regard for the equipment, just accept the risk and don't try to blame the equipment.

How do you determine that I am reckless without even  knowing me, the location and flight conditions, etc.?
I've been analysing flight data from flight incidents for 6 years and flying for more than that.
I read the data, like you might read a magazine article.
I can see what you did and what the flight environment was like and having thousands of miles flying experience, I have a pretty good idea what's safe flying and what isn't.

Using the same  logic I could make similar assumptions about you regardless of your  acquired forum rank, indicated flight distance, etc.
Forum rank is meaningless and my indicated distance is a fraction of what I've flown
I don't make assumptions, I show the story that the data is telling.
If you did see my flight data and could read it, you'd see that although I often fly in environments and conditions that others wouldn't, I always bring my drone back safely.
My main drone is almost 5 years old and still running as well as on day 1.
My backup machine has only been used for two weeks in 5 years (when the #1 machine had to get a new shell because of cracking).

I was simply  reaching out to this community in attempt to find out a) if I might be  experiencing an issue with the product (DJI states controller, you say  they made a mistake, who do I believe?) or whether the application I am  using the MA2 for is completely what it is not intended for.
I've tried to explain what I see in the data and address your questions as clearly as I can.
I think I've done a good job of it, but whether you believe is up to you.

Why would I fly a drone I paid that much for into a rock face?
Because you flew in a risky environment without proper regard for the safety of the drone.

The  cached video footage clearly shows me loosing signal well away from the  rock face and if you even knew me, obviously would have attempted to  recover signal by reversing course. Which by the way, I have several  people who witnessed this including the person who was requesting  certain views for the project watching over my shoulder as we explored  the rock face

The video corresponds to what the data shows ... that you gave control inputs to descend behind a rick ridge and move into the rock wall.
I'm going to believe the data every time rather than someone more than a mile away who tells me he had a clear line of sight when he didn't.
And I'd expect your onlookers to have even less idea what was going on.

You mention about the "Weak image transmission signal. Adjust  antennas(Code 80004).; Weak signal. Adjust antennas." message which  shows up in the log 7 secs before I lost RC signal, and I am brand new  to these logs, but I there was no message indicating any such thing in  the app and for the next 7 secs, the message never reappears in the log.  How does an op know something is wrong without any indications of such  presented?
Just like the pilot of a real plane, if you want to fly in risky environments, you need to understand the limitations of the technology, take some responsibility and don't expect the drone perform flawlessly when you put it in a situation where it's going to crash.

No offense, but these aircraft are marketed to a completely  different demographic than you obviously relate to.
I relate to the aircraft, it's abilities and limitations.
You just expect it to work like magic and get you out of a pickle.

Again, no offense, but there is no way you have enough information to  judge the operator as being reckless.
No offense, but your assessment isn't correct.
I've done hundreds of incident investigations and learned a lot from what I see in them.

Labroides Posted at 7-17 03:50
We're saying exactly the same thing except in my first analysis post, I hadn't read to the bottom of the OP's extra long post and hadn't seen his video so I'd assumed the drone attempted RTH and made some guesses about what might happen if it attempted to RTH.
But I told the story that's in the data until the data stops, which, it turns out covers the time until the crash which is shown in the video.

you've earned my upvote, sorry for being an impolite dude up above.