I bought a drone 10 months ago, a phantom vision 2+.

I have never had a crash, always made proper checks, never flew without at least 7 satellites locked to drone.

A few weeks back I took it to the countryside, persomed all safety checks, full batteries, batteries fully installed and checked for security.  
I lifted the drone up to about 30 feet, it hoverd for about ten seconds before crazy red lights started to appear, then the motors stopped suddenly and the drone smashed to the ground a few meters away.

I told the dealer about this, he said he 'hooked it up' to a diagnostics machine and found no fault, but that he's send it to DJI UK service centre for diagnostics.

DJI basically accused me of deliberately crashing this drone myself as they found it flew well.  They also accused me of trying to stick a crewdriver into the battery, which incidentally came flying out of the drone upon impact on hard ground.

The camera is totally snapped off the drone rendering it useless.

They told me it willl cost £500 to fix.

Where do I stand given that it is still under warranty and i did not cause this crash?

What DJI service centre in the UK ?
Can you post a copy of the letter from DJI accusing you of deliberately crashing ?

They said on the phone call today, "we checked the drone, it's flying ok, so you must have did this yourself by pressing the wrong sticks"

It's been horrendous for me really.  I have 2 babies at home and borrowed the money for this drone and now I am left with a useless piece of plastic really.

This is the part of the email where they actually accuse me of deliberately tampering with the battery:

If I may offer an independent opinion.....

To be honest, that certainly looks like a screwdriver mark to me.  A quad falling from the sky would land on it's undercarriage, the battery is well up inside the quad and reasonably well protected.
Seeing as the quad itself doesn't really have much damage, I'm surprised if this damage to the (well protected) battery was caused by the drop.

gerd@smucb.ac.u Posted at 2015-4-22 00:35
They said on the phone call today, "we checked the drone, it's flying ok, so you must have did this  ...

This is troubling since I’ve had a similar situation with mine. I got an IMU error and all four led’s turned red but I never had any erratic behavior brought it down quickly and safely. Took it in and did an advanced calibration and all seemed fine.
Fast forward a week and 3.3 miles and 9 min into what seemed like a perfect flight the quad just lost all power and crashed to the ground for no reason and with NO warning that it was going happen.
The camera took all of the impact and was destroyed.It landed square on the neighbor’s 8’ fence. The battery was knocked out and laying about 10’ from the unit and still on showing 2 solid led’s and the third one flashing. I always make sure the battery is seated and I hear the solid “CLICK”.
After the failure I went through and checked everything over and other than the camera there was no other damage I could see.
Before sending it in to DJI I had 3 other batteries that I had to discharge so they wouldn’t be sitting fully charged for the time that the Phantom is in for repairs. Over 30 min of running (inside the house while holding it since I didn’t trust it to actually fly outside) and testing all directions of control, not once did it seem to act up or repeat the power failure!
If their only method of “testing “ is to fly it for a few seconds to determine that all is good, that’s just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!! I have a very detailed flight log from my Flytrex 3G and it clearly shows that everything was 100% and that all the sudden the quad literally just lost all power in an instant!
So far I have no reason to say that DJI is going to leave me out in the cold on this because the phantom is still in transit to them BUT I really hope they take this seriously and do more to find the cause other than to fly it for a few seconds and say all is good! Still can’t believe that’s what they did and said. That’s lazy and incompetent. JOH0.

gerd@smucb.ac.u Posted at 2015-4-22 00:35
They said on the phone call today, "we checked the drone, it's flying ok, so you must have did this  ...

I hate to say it but for you buying a drone was a poor decision. Flying drones is an expensive hobby. Even if you are a very good pilot and try to take precautions you will still eventually destroy or lose your drone quite possibly through no fault of your own. Even in perfect condition, their values will depreciate rapidly as new models are released every few months. You buy a drone with disposable income and kiss the money goodbye and try to have as much fun with it as possible while it still flies. In a few years, the situation should be different with smaller lighter less expensive drones that are fully autonomous, avoid crashes, have very reliable software and can survive a crash even if something does go wrong. If you can't afford to lose the money now, buy a $60 drone from Amazon for fun and try to be patient.

flyingduck88@gm Posted at 2015-4-22 01:17
This is troubling since I’ve had a similar situation with mine. I got an IMU error and all four l ...

I have actually caught my dealer out.  He told me they looked at it first themselves.  He then said he sent it to DJI for analysis.  He said DJI got back to him and told me it was my fault.  

I asked him for the contact info for DJI Essex (where he told me it was sent).  It turns out that DJI Essex is just another dealer who supplies drones to all the other independent shops and they are NOT a registered DJI analysis centre.  

I'm getting a solicitor or at least trading standards involved.

Hopefully if DJI sees this in the forum they should contact you to help get to the bottom of this.

500 pounds!  I think you may want to look at the new P3.

That's why I asked what UK service centre was used, as there isn't any, for DJI service in Europe you have to send it to Germany.
UK sale of goods act tells you your contract and warranty Is with the supplying dealer, they are your first contact, but as they say its not a warranty issue then you will need to prove to them that it is.

I could have sworn I posted in this thread asking this question already...You titled your thread "Never Again" but never said what was never again?  Flying?  Owning a drone? Did you quit smoking?

Sorry to hear about anyone having a crash and also about what you appear to be going through as a result.

I had found on one occasion as I was about t start the Phantom my battery was not fully inserted as I usually give it a tap on the bum/battery so to speak and heard a click!..it looked inserted or I thought it was inserted but obviously it was not and hence a ritual before every flight!...
Flashing Reds are usually a sign of a power failure or Sensor bios being too big...
Slow flashing is low voltage alert
Fast flashing is critical low voltage alert or sensor bios being too big...
Solid Red is Dead!..Error!

I have had two instances of such flashings with the battery fully inserted and only ever occurred as I powered up the Phantom...Turned it off, pulled and reseated battery and problem gone...Hope you get it sorted....

After that length of time you could have had either total battery failure (unlikely) or dirty contacts on the battery. Or, it's possible that somehow you accidentally did a CSC. People do it. Quite a few have. You may hardly know you have done it. But they can probably check the internal log and see that one was done.

I don't think they meant you "deliberately" crashed your drones...

I do have to agree - if you borrowed money to buy this that is a bad decision. This is an expensive pursuit and many many (most?) pilots have reported needing to replace or fix their drones within the first year. The warranty on R/C aircraft does not cover crashes.

You can buy a camera and gimbal on ebay for the equiv. of about US $420 and do the repair yourself - if you are fairly handy. Maybe your dealer even has a "pull" camera from another Phantom he can replace it with.

But, yeah, I think a good percentage - maybe 1/3 of recent Phantom buyers - don't understand that when you get a year out of a drone without replacing it, it's time for a celebration. I was in the hobby for two years before I spend more than $500 US on a drone (and that was a Phantom 1 that I still have).

Hey guys just an update.  Both the dealer and the guys at the distributer/repair centre have agreed to replace the gimbal and camera and a new battery split the bill 3 ways £200.

Not what I would have wanted but in the end it could have got messy with solicitors, counter claims etc etc.  Bottom line was, they tested the drone, it flew well and nothing was amiss.  

I definitely think this crash happened after the firmware update, BUT that said, we're humans, I'd rather have a good relationship with the dealer etc. and not go down the road of litigation (there were emails sent back and forth between the dealer and repair centre I was not supposed to see).

So harmony has been restored and all if good...It could have been much worse for me!

Sounds good.....that's a relatively low cost of first year ownership.

Make sure you check your batteries (many are reporting they do downhill after 50 charges) and also maybe use contact cleaner and some of the conductive greases (search around the net - some tests have been made and they help)

In a new twist, DJI contacted me from China stating that:  

Daniel Huang (DJI)
Apr 23, 15:27
Dear Sir,

In order to pinpoint your case, Could you please ask your dealer for the RMA# of your case? There's many returns from him
Thank you for your understanding and patience.
With regards
DJI Technical Support10


Could this be a batch of faulty drones sent to Flying Drones?

How many Phantoms has Flying Drones sold ?
How many is many ?
How many were sent for repair after crashing due to user error ?
How many were sent in for warranty repair ?
Until you have the answers to all these questions you can only speculate as you have, that there was a faulty batch.