DJI Air Fell Out of Sky

[mgear]

Hello. I am an active DJI user (Phantom 4, Ronin-M, Osmo Pro, Osmo Mobile, etc) and I recently purchased an Air to take on my vacation to Europe. Long story short, I had less than 40 minutes of flight time on the air. I had taken off, climbed out for a shot, but since the lighting wasn’t that great yet, decided to return home. I was flying back and the Air encountered a Motor Current issue, I continued to fly back, and then the Air literally fell out of the sky (I had line of sight viewing). My flight log is here:

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/2IG6ZBOSXTAWX19JJQXB/

Literally the log goes from normal flying to a tenth of a second later, at a 0.0 feet of altitude. I felt like this was a pretty clear cut case that there was an issue and sent in the Air.

So I get a response back:
"According to the analysis, no crash found in the available flight records and there is obvious damage that impairs normal function of the unit. The cause of the issue is due to physical damage. Therefore the incident was not caused by any product malfunction.

We can still proceed with the repair, however, you will cover the repair charges."

Yeah no kidding there was physical damage, it fell 240 feet straight down to the ground. Is there something I am missing here? Shouldn’t the 0.0 feet of elevation at the last frame be enough to show there was a mid flight crash?

Thanks!

[Fly_Dawg]

@mgear

Shouldn’t the 0.0 feet of elevation at the last frame be enough to show there was a mid flight crash?

No, the aircraft is not going to fall over 200ft in 1/10 of a second. That is an erroneous point. It is simply where the data stream ends. There is no way to determine that “actual” cause from this file alone. Presumeably DJI looked at the aircraft data in addition to this. As to how they made that determination is any ones guess.

[JJB]

Hi mgear,

Had a look at your flight too. After 1m 19s you had a warning: “Motor Current Error. Check your propellers and fly with caution”.

After that many NotenoughPower errors, wich are not seen in the app.

End of the flight your drone asked for lot of power, up to 19 amps! (max in flight 22)

Did you fly at low temperature? In Sports mode much power is aked for this flight.
My guess is that too much amps ‘killed’ your drone.

Did you recover your MA, did it powered up ?

cheers
JJB

[Fly_Dawg]

@JJB

My guess is that too much amps ‘killed’ your drone.

The max amperage drawn is not that unusual. If you notice these are only for a very brief period after releasing the elevator to stop. That portion is relatively normal to see. Also, as the battery voltage goes down, current increases, which is also normal. There is not enough data in this file to make any sort of determination as to the direct cause. The .dat would most likely supply the needed data.