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Disconnected mid-flight - anyone else had this happen?

No I didn't regain control and had a fly away with complete loss.

The damaging thing for me though was that the flight record says I descended it into the water at full speed from 21metres above. I didn't, I'm an experienced Phantom flyer so why would I do that? It says I pulled the left stick hard down for a full 5 seconds. Ever thought of doing this when flying at a low level over water. No? Me either. And I saw it fly away out to sea as I tried to regain control. Very strange and a bit like crashburn, I've had to buy a new set of trousers and beg for mercy at the wife's budget interrogation.

In discussions with DJI for the last 2 weeks but looks like we'll agree a satisfactory solution for me.....


I had the same issue about 2 weeks ago now, just after updating to the new firmware. I was flying along a small open river getting some footage, all of a sudden lost all video and my iPad was saying disconnected. I stopped moving and pressed return to home. Unfortunately when i pressed return to home it flew away out of sight and not in my direction. I'm now unable to locate the inspire.
I have contacted tech support but would love to know what solution you came to with them and some help would be much appreciated
 
Hi, the outcome of case with DJI was after many emails and information provided about the flight and finally getting to talk to someone I was offered a significant discount on a new Inspire. I had to send back the Remote Controller and they sent me a brand new Inspire.

Even though I didn't want to spend any more money on the Inspire as I had lost confidence in it and it was an expensive experience given I only flew it for 15 minutes, I accepted the big discount because the flight record showed that I was 21 metres above water and I pulled the left stick hard down for 5 seconds and the Inspire descended into the water. I absolutely didn't do that as I'm experienced with the Phantom but the flight record disagreed with me.

The key to the outcome of your case I think will be what your flight record says has happened. It will tell DJI everything about the flight and your Inspire including your control inputs up to the the point you say it flew away. You need to analyse all details of the record as DJI will.

Don't expect anything to happen quickly either. I had incredible trouble getting fast responses with problems at every stage. All up it took about 7 weeks to resolve from the date I reported it. I have my new Inspire and after the first very nervous flight I have flattened about 10 batteries without problems. Slowly I'm gaining some confidence in it......
 
I wonder if it's possible the home point didn't get set to your new location and was set to your previous location (living room or last flight location for example). On controller signal loss it headed to that "home" point. Does your flight record show your home point correctly set?

Just a theory but some Phantom "fly aways" were attributed to incorrect home points. Letting the bird IMU fully warm up and making sure you have a strong satellite lock before takeoff are good checklist items.

Why the controller lost signal to the aircraft is a key concern but could be a number of root causes: Signal multipathing (especially over water), controller FW bug, bad USB cable (was reported in RC groups to have been a potential cause of iPad crash + controller signal loss/restart), radio interference, shortened range due to antenna placement / flight height, etc.

But the "you pulled full stick down" (when you didn't) incident is the first I've heard of that. Very sorry for your loss.
 
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I had just flown the Inspire at the same spot, flattened the battery and closed down, replaced the battery and started up. I didn't check the home point had been set but if it used the last one it would have used the one from the previous flight because I did check that I had a home point for that one.

Probably something else as you say. I've installed a screen recorder now to give me some peace of mind in case this happens again. I do think it was a freak set of circumstances.

I'm confused by the flight record showing I pulled the stick down. If you have any experience and you were 20 metres above water, imagine yourself pulling your left thumb down for a full 5 seconds. It's not natural and a kamikaze act!
 
I had just flown the Inspire at the same spot, flattened the battery and closed down, replaced the battery and started up. I didn't check the home point had been set but if it used the last one it would have used the one from the previous flight because I did check that I had a home point for that one.

Probably something else as you say. I've installed a screen recorder now to give me some peace of mind in case this happens again. I do think it was a freak set of circumstances.

I'm confused by the flight record showing I pulled the stick down. If you have any experience and you were 20 metres above water, imagine yourself pulling your left thumb down for a full 5 seconds. It's not natural and a kamikaze act!

I too, experienced the 'blank screen' then into the water... complete loss.
 
I had exactly the same thing with a mavic. Drone low battery warning after 4' flight. RTH initiated, lost connection. Drone flew 1000m back and to RTH. 60 meters away the drone just flew 700m into the middle of a lake until it had no battery and auto-landed.

I write since 2 months with DJI. They tell me I'm lying to them and hide behind the "well, there's no data of malfunction." - phrase.

They can see the flight route and that the drone was almost home and then flew 100% straight in another direction.

Support is pretty poor and when I tell them that someone in management should care as this can be pretty dangerous they think it's a threat. They offered me 15% and some personal insults...

They also say that their hardware and software is 100% error free lol

Even they see that the stick forward 100% shown in data is very strange they never answer about this.

They keep saying it just ran out of battery and autolanded into the open lake.

Can you share your case number?
 
I had exactly the same thing with a mavic. Drone low battery warning after 4' flight. RTH initiated, lost connection. Drone flew 1000m back and to RTH. 60 meters away the drone just flew 700m into the middle of a lake until it had no battery and auto-landed.

I write since 2 months with DJI. They tell me I'm lying to them and hide behind the "well, there's no data of malfunction." - phrase.

They can see the flight route and that the drone was almost home and then flew 100% straight in another direction.

Support is pretty poor and when I tell them that someone in management should care as this can be pretty dangerous they think it's a threat. They offered me 15% and some personal insults...

They also say that their hardware and software is 100% error free lol

Even they see that the stick forward 100% shown in data is very strange they never answer about this.

They keep saying it just ran out of battery and autolanded into the open lake.

Can you share your case number?
That last post was 2 and a half years ago .
 

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