yes - it is as idiotic as the title suggests.
was fighting some wind on return home and ended up having to make the last 200ft at 1% battery. i wasn't exactly sure what to expect, so i made it a point to avoid people/cars/houses (luckily). unfortunately that course put it over trees and so i couldn't just set it down immediately. it was totally my fault, i guess i was expecting some kind of forced safe landing at critcal battery level or something other than it falling out of the sky.

while landing, it was at 0% and then a warning popped up "Critically Low Voltage WarningLand as soon as possible, or battery will be damaged."

was still coming down and then another warning popped up" Critically Low Voltage WarningAircraft Landing"
at that point i believe i had no control. less than 10 seconds later at 20+ feet it just fell from the sky. it landed perfectly flat.

the battery is completely dead and won't take a charge.
the drone itself seems to have taken it very well. the only visible damage is cosmetic crack on a landing nub on the rear of the body (see photo).
the props don't even have a scratch and all sensors are OK. I flew it after and it seems that it flies perfect.

i do have dji refresh. should i use it?
the dead battery isn't cheap and maybe something internal could have broken that i'm not aware of?

Good news is you still have your drone in one piece. Always fly into the wind so that you have it at your back when coming home.

It happens, but it's usually such an expensive leason that it will never happen to you again.

Hi BobDoLe, I'm so sorry to read the crash. For the DJI Care Refresh of Mavic series, it covers aircraft, bound gimbal and camera, battery and propellers. For your situation, you may start a case and send the unit in for fully diagnosis: https://www.dji.com/support

I think the scenario could be little more different. The battery is properly functioning before the crash and not the cause of the crash. If it had disconnected the drone would have simply fallen from the sky, not gone up into an obstacle.  

In my case i ran out of Drone battery and luckily it automatically opted the option for "Return To Home". I thought i would never get back the Drone as i had misplaced it somewhere in the sky.

I had a situation before too. It was fighting the wind that it auto landing at 15 %. I was abled to control it till I find a good spot to land. But it lost transmission at 2%. I was lucky to recover the bird. After checking the video from SD, l realized the aircraft was hovering at 1m for about 2 minutes then it touched down. The battery was fine after charging. From then on, never fly on when wind speed exceed more than 10 miles per hour.

Here some pictures

@BobDoLe, can we take a look at your flight log? If that's okay, please upload it here and post the link back here.

DJI Susan Posted at 11-24 02:03
Hi BobDoLe, I'm so sorry to read the crash. For the DJI Care Refresh of Mavic series, it covers aircraft, bound gimbal and camera, battery and propellers. For your situation, you may start a case and send the unit in for fully diagnosis: https://www.dji.com/support

yeah i'll just do that... it did hit the ground pretty hard.

ive got the same - battery runs from like 4 mins of flying to 0 in one second. im going to send it to support cuz couldnt land safely in this case

Bing Err Posted at 11-24 01:05
It happens, but it's usually such an expensive leason that it will never happen to you again.

You would think so but........

isn't suppose to auto land at 15%?  

Christine96 Posted at 11-25 11:54
isn't suppose to auto land at 15%?

Depends on setup.

It shouldnt drop to 0% :p its inteligent battery right?

Christine96 Posted at 11-25 11:54
isn't suppose to auto land at 15%?

No. The drone will auto land when the battery reaches the critically low level.

it seems there are two automatic landing events.. the low battery and then the CRITICAL low battery. the critical low battery landing seems to completely lock out user input?
it started to auto land on low battery, but i was holding the stick up. i guess this is a safety feature? it did warn about potential battery damage.
the battery failed as the result of it allowing me to force it to run the voltage too low. my assumption that it would be intelligent enough to be able to land before battery failure was wrong.

the takeaway for me is that regardless of all of these safeguards built in... if you run out of the juice the thing is going to fall out of the sky.
all it takes is for one of the cells (cell #1 in my case) to drop too low.
i don't recommend anyone else test this because it will cost you a battery.

BobDoLe Posted at 11-25 13:48
it seems there are two automatic landing events.. the low battery and then the CRITICAL low battery. the critical low battery landing seems to completely lock out user input?
it started to auto land on low battery, but i was holding the stick up. i guess this is a safety feature? it did warn about potential battery damage.
the battery failed as the result of it allowing me to force it to run the voltage too low. my assumption that it would be intelligent enough to be able to land before battery failure was wrong.

I think you can cancel auto land for low battery warning but not critical low battery.  Is that right?  Anyone?

Christine96 Posted at 11-25 14:51
I think you can cancel auto land for low battery warning but not critical low battery.  Is that right?  Anyone?

Yes it right. Have had this once up on a mountain 3km away and 800m up.
Its more how you use the battery when this will start.
You can also fly it on 0% for some time if you do it right.

Christine96 Posted at 11-25 14:51
I think you can cancel auto land for low battery warning but not critical low battery.  Is that right?  Anyone?

that was my experience, but i think if it ever happens, it is either going to land or fall out of the sky.. i just wish it would have descended faster and kicked in sooner. however, think the battery cell deviation is not accounted for. i'm not suggesting that the drone should be made MORE idiot proof, but its worth noting in case anyone else ever finds themself in a scenario where they feel they can't land at 1%.

here's some of the log:

cell deviation:
time        deviation   #1           #2           #3
17m 19s        0.374v        2.078v        2.452v        2.697v

notifications:
time         ALT        Distance   Notification
17m 09s        130.2 ft        60 ft        Tip        Critically Low Voltage Warning Aircraft Landing
17m 18s        70.9 ft        16 ft        Warning        Not Enough Force/ESC Error (repeated 50 times)

in my case, critical low voltage meant that battery was dying in 11 seconds. maybe if not for the cell deviation and each cell was 2.4v at 17min 9 sec, there would have been enough left to safely land from 130ft?

Does DJI make a higher density battery for the MA?  

BobDoLe Posted at 11-24 22:28
yeah i'll just do that... it did hit the ground pretty hard.

That's OK. If you encounter any difficulties during the progress, feel free to contact us with your case number, we'll be here for help.

djiuser_9dsEB7OJ4eAm Posted at 11-25 08:22
ive got the same - battery runs from like 4 mins of flying to 0 in one second. im going to send it to support cuz couldnt land safely in this case

Sorry to read about this. Just to verify, is it a brand new battery? Does it appear in every flight? You may try to fully discharge the battery and then charge it fully again to see whether it helps.

Christine96 Posted at 11-25 15:31
Does DJI make a higher density battery for the MA?

No. DJI only sells one battery.

Just to be safe I think you should take advantage of your DJI refresh and hope that you have learned a valuable lesson from this one.  We all make mistakes and hope we learn from them.  Good luck and happy to see the drone in one piece.

Christine96 Posted at 11-25 15:31
Does DJI make a higher density battery for the MA?

Hi Christine96, the critical low battery is calculated by the flight controller and it changes depends on the flying environment. And yes, the critical low battery cannot be canceled. Currently, the battery capacity of Mavic Air battery is 2970 mAh. If there is anything new, we'll release on our website immediately.

DJI Susan Posted at 11-25 20:16
Sorry to read about this. Just to verify, is it a brand new battery? Does it appear in every flight? You may try to fully discharge the battery and then charge it fully again to see whether it helps.

it's not brand new - I charges this battery like 3 times already.

everything would be OK if the controller let me land my own and not force me to land on auto mode

fammas Posted at 11-26 00:26
it's not brand new - I charges this battery like 3 times already.

everything would be OK if the controller let me land my own and not force me to land on auto mode

Hi fammas, as mentioned above, the critically low battery is calculated by the flight controller and cannot be canceled. After the fully discharging, you may check there is any error message and whether the battery voltage difference is within tolerance.

DJI Susan Posted at 11-26 04:53
Hi fammas, as mentioned above, the critically low battery is calculated by the flight controller and cannot be canceled. After the fully discharging, you may check there is any error message and whether the battery voltage difference is within tolerance.

I know that.

You can chect everything here:
phantomhelp


LogViewer/ZT8PWMGBU52FVC11G1PT/?fbclid=IwAR17eYo0rgR_yClf4DjGkfVd3wRhuzWsS_u9aH-EZZxZ3A0mQYdKNv2Fqws

fammas Posted at 11-26 05:28
I know that.

You can chect everything here:

Thanks for getting back to us. I'm sorry that we do not support to analyze the flight records from the third -party software, please refer to the above suggestion to check.

Suren Posted at 11-24 00:17
Good news is you still have your drone in one piece. Always fly into the wind so that you have it at your back when coming home.

Very good advice that

Glad about 2 things.

1.  Got your craft back without critical damage
2.  You realise that it is your fault

It is annoying when one gets a "Low Battery" warning at 30% but it is really safest.

DJI Susan Posted at 11-27 00:40
Thanks for getting back to us. I'm sorry that we do not support to analyze the flight records from the third -party software, please refer to the above suggestion to check.

Ah forgot i just send my drone back to service - they will  analyze all logs and i hope ghat my drone will come back repaired cuz i really belive it was just one accident like this

DJI Susan Posted at 11-27 00:40
Thanks for getting back to us. I'm sorry that we do not support to analyze the flight records from the third -party software, please refer to the above suggestion to check.

Ah forgot i just send my drone back to service - they will  analyze all logs and i hope ghat my drone will come back repaired cuz i really belive it was just one accident like this

fammas Posted at 11-27 14:20
Ah forgot  i just send my drone back to service - they will  analyze all logs and i hope ghat my drone will come back repaired cuz i really belive it was just one accident like this

That's OK. If you encounter any difficulties during the progress, please contact us with your case number, we'll be here for help all the time.

thank god for dji care refresh... replaced drone for less than the cost of a battery.

BobDoLe Posted at 12-5 13:28
[view_image]
thank god for dji care refresh... replaced drone for less than the cost of a battery.

It looks like a fair price, particularly if they are sending you new or equivalent to new, hope it works out for you.

BobDoLe Posted at 11-25 13:48
it seems there are two automatic landing events.. the low battery and then the CRITICAL low battery. the critical low battery landing seems to completely lock out user input?
it started to auto land on low battery, but i was holding the stick up. i guess this is a safety feature? it did warn about potential battery damage.
the battery failed as the result of it allowing me to force it to run the voltage too low. my assumption that it would be intelligent enough to be able to land before battery failure was wrong.

Battery being the most important part of your drone should be checked at all times during the flight, just because your battery says 50% this is not the best gauge of judging how battery is preforming.
There are ways to check for battery cells that drop suddenly causing craft to lose power and these can be monitored by simply having voltage monitoring displayed on screen, I will leave picture below, just check the box, it will show on your screen the lowest cell voltage you can easily monitor this as it will show top right hand corner.

You weren't looking to good at the funeral today Bob but glad you made it there