Hello!


I'm new here, please be gentile. I've owned a Mavic Air for 1 year but I haven't flown that much. I've been having problems with the connection between the Mavic and the RC. I haven't been able to go so far (300 m) without losing contact and getting RTH. So mostly it's been sitting in my room.


However 2 weeks ago I pulled it out again and went out flying again. TODAY I lost it to the ocean. The story is short.

I had been flying for a while and decided to RTH and land it on the boat I was on. I had maybe 30% battery when approaching the boat and it suddenly just took of and flew away without me being able to control it. I regained control after a while and tried one more time but it wouldn't come down. Suddenly a timer appeared that it was going to land. And it was hovering a few meters over the water. I panicked and tried to grab it while steering it closer to me. But it just went further away, not weird because of the sensors sensing obstacle. I still had maybe 15% if I'm remembering right, maybe more. Suddenly, a few meters over sea level the rotors decreased their spinning and it slowly descended until they stopped and said "Landing", while still in the air (!), as if it actually was going to land on the ground but now 3 meters up and crashed into the water. I jumped in (with my friends phone in my pocket, double fail lol) but not fast enough.

I just want to know what happened. Is there a way? Was it my fault? I don't think so, but I want to learn in case I get a new one. Could it be harder for it to spot the distance to water than to land? I can't grasp it. It was so weird.

I don't have any DJI care and it's over 1 year old and I don't have the drone either so I assume I have no rights to get a new one? I know approximately where it is, I could hire a diver but I think I need to know if it's worth it first...

Thank you for reading.

Hi Taxflax, sorry for your loss, if your drone is EU version, you should still be able to apply for the data analysis, please contact our support team www.dji.com/support to start a ticket for further assistance.

Hey Taxflax, your story made me wandering what really went wrong since I'm also interested in flying over water.

Could it be that you have set your RTH point to take of point instead of controller location? My best guess is that it decided to land for some reason (battery or whatever) and if the RTH location was set to take of location, and your boat probably drifted a bit from where it was when you took of, it returned to the location where your boat was at that moment and performed landing procedure.

When you say "decided to RTH and land it on the boat I was on" you mean manually or by entering RTH mode?

Anyway, please share the outcome of this investigation, it would be valuable resource for the community!

Regards!

_danilo Posted at 9-2 16:46
Hey Taxflax, your story made me wandering what really went wrong since I'm also interested in flying over water.

Could it be that you have set your RTH point to take of point instead of controller location? My best guess is that it decided to land for some reason (battery or whatever) and if the RTH location was set to take of location, and your boat probably drifted a bit from where it was when you took of, it returned to the location where your boat was at that moment and performed landing procedure.

By the way, RTH point to controller location does not mean that if you move to a new location the drone will return home to where ever the controller is, that is not the case.
The reality is, the drone will always return home to the original position from where it took off even if you set it to RTH to controller location.

You have tested it yourself? If yes, how far were you from your takeoff point when you were roaming with controller in your hand?