My Mavic Air fell out the sky and into the ocean.

[Griffiv]

Hey everyone.

I’m pretty gutted. The other day I was flying on a battery of around 70% along the coastline off an island in Croatia and my baby gave me a camera transmission loss msg. It was about 10 meters out and around 300 metres away from me around a corner. It asked me to initiate RTH which I did but nothing happened. I started walking quickly towards it hoping the signal would come back if I were closer but nothing. I manually tried to RTH but still nothing. Nothing I did either increasing altitude or trying to turn it around registered on the screen. No change at all. By this time I’m half running and then, after a couple minutes, disaster! “Disconnected” comes up on a black screen. Noooooooooooooo!!!!! Wtf??! I get to the spot it should be and nothing. Don’t hear it, don’t see it. No one is around to witness. Nothing. My heart is exploding and I know it must have gone down. Anyway. From the gps I kinda knew how far out it was and vaguely where it was and so about 10 minutes later I found it about 16 feet down on the bottom of the ocean. Brought it up and as soon as I got back to shore, took the battery out. It was really tough to get out and then I saw why. The battery was pretty well melted to the drone in one corner. Smelt very burnt. So I’m trying to figure out the chicken or the egg: did the battery ignite and that’s whe the drone took a dive or did the battery ignite because it fell in the water? Can anyone help me there. I rinsed it out with fresh water and frustratingly enough can’t find any isopropyl in the small town I am it so as a last ditch effort and driven by mourning, I dumped it in a bag of rice knowing that would most likely be futile. Took it out today and cleaned it up but with a fresh battery - nada. Didn’t want to try too long with a good battery though. I don’t know what happened. If anyone can shed some light that’d be great. I only got the thing in July and it’s been perfect...until it wasn’t. Managed to get the SD card out right away and that seems fine. All the footage is there save the last video file I was shooting when it went down. It shows the file but there is nothing in it and I don’t cache on my phone. The flight log shows the previous flights, complete with a couple of “interference to signal” messages but the last fateful log shows no messages and just cuts off when the drone went down. I have contacted DJI so waiting to hear from them. Glad I wasn’t flying over anywhere populated but still very bummed. Happy to hear your thoughts as to why this might have happened
Cheers.

 

[Fly Dawg]

did the battery ignite and that’s whe the drone took a dive or did the battery ignite because it fell in the water?

My guess is the latter. I have never seen any evidence of a battery of any aircraft ignite in flight. If we could see your flight log maybe we could give you a better answer. Or, maybe not, depending on transmission from the AC. You would see anomalies in the data if it were a pre-crash incident, most likely.

 

[BigAl07]

Welcome to the forum and sorry for your problems.

Have you tried asking over in the Mavic forum? Here's a link for you:
DJI Mavic Drone Forum

 

[Griffiv]

Welcome to the forum and sorry for your problems.

Have you tried asking over in the Mavic forum? Here's a link for you:
DJI Mavic Drone Forum

Hi. Thank you. I’ll do that.
Regards,
Val.

 

[Griffiv]

My guess is the latter. I have never seen any evidence of a battery of any aircraft ignite in flight. If we could see your flight log maybe we could give you a better answer. Or, maybe not, depending on transmission from the AC. You would see anomalies in the data if it were a pre-crash incident, most likely.

Thanks for your reply. That’s interesting to know. I will upload the logs.

Thanks for your input.
Regards,
Val.

 

[TuT]

Half the time it seems pilots think they are initiating a RTH when in fact they are cancelling one that the drone has already initiated on its own. By mashing that RTH button you could be cancelling a RTH already in play.

As long as settings for RTH are correct, I never touch my RTH button, especially if I can't see my Phantom clearly. Chances are you may be cancelling a RTH and the quad will just hover until it lands.

Always make sure your RTH is well above any obstacles before you take off and check your home point is correctly recorded. If you lose connectivity then just wait. At worst, turn your remote power off. This will always force a RTH IF your settings are right.

If you don't panic and follow a few simple rules you should never lose your Quad. (Unless you have a battery failure, IMU failure, hit an invisible power pole - DJI says they can be 100 foot tall, as in my warranty rejection case - ooops, I'm going off topic).