I wouldn’t have thought so with the initial problem starting with the battery at 50%
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Hi @plumber , it started it’s problem at under 40% battery when it arrived at an imaginary restricted zone, all the time after that it would not do a RTH (manual or auto) and I had to traverse a bubble of restriction I could not ‘see’
I never go below 20% normally, this was out of control - see the update below 
Well whadya know !!!
Got a text from the owner of the garden this morning, Air 3 found and apparently ‘safe and sound’… he climbed a ladder up a tree after spotting it… so I raced around and there it was, no body or gimbal damage, only one prop had a crack.
As you will see from the video I made of it’s final descent, it took a long while to find a spot to land, I had lost contact and even before that it was ignoring my commands…it still had power when it came to rest. I will post the full video including problem points mirrored to Airdata so you can see nothing would work. I will still get hold of DJI though because it should never have ‘detected’ this restricted zone… you can see one warning on the river bank even, which is where I fly from regularly!
Apologies for the dramatic music, I have to make a boring video exciting 
No grading or LUTs, just raw footage for now
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That’s good news. I would still open a ticket with DJI so they can investigate and maybe pre empt it happening again if not to you then to someone else.
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100% - in the meantime I won’t fly near here until they sort this type of thing out, could happen to anyone, anywhere…
Out of interest, I may drive to the other side of the Thames and take off from that ‘restriction zone’ spot, at least I can land in a massive space and see my drone…
Personally I think this is a significant bug
@bmsleight Yes he was a very friendly elderly guy…nothing was a problem…so he got some nice wine as a thank you
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I think you cancelled RTH with right joystick forward
@plumber … I was forced to do so… If you look at the log list you will see it was not moving home with the RTH on 2 to 3 occasions so I had to take over
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Great news that you managed to recover the drone! Would be interested in the response from DJI to see what they think the issue was.
Always a good idea to fly within VLOS though… makes these situations easier to deal with. Not sure on Coverdrones policy wording for these situations but they may chose to not honour a claim if you’re not flying within the limits of the drone code. I’ve had a few incidents with my Autel drone (disconnects etc) and being VLOS saved the day for me.
Glad you found your drone and looking on this site hopefully helped you.
I joined this site and club for the same reason.
A short update in case anyone is interested…
- I raised a DJI service request, for a check/fix under warranty, UPS label sent, picked up Friday 2nd Feb
- Arrived on Tuesday 6th Feb in NL 12 noon
- Email 0900 Wednesday they found a fault on motherboard and so will replace it and ship back to me
Aircraft Core Board Module Quantity: 1 Net Price : 207.44
Repair Service Fee Quantity: 1 Net Price : 50.00
Grand Total Payment (EUR) 0.00
I cancelled my Insurance Claim on the day I found it.
Lesson learned, I was tempted to do nothing as the drone looked fine, no damage apart from propeller… but I was glad I sent it back and didn’t fly it again, because I would have had the same issue and would lose my drone again 
Thanks for the suggestion earlier to use warranty (and I was not going to use DJI Care)
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Jobs a good un. To be fair dji are pretty good, and don’t tend to fob you off.
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I reckon it’s an odds on favourite, that they’ll just send a new drone ( or refurbished one) then refurbish yours as a replacement for someone else.
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You’d be right… Brand new drone… Not a refurb… Checked it top to tail… No dust, wear…or any sign of usage…
Now I need to print more OP stickers…
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How’d you know?
Manufacturing date December/23, and I see zero battery insert/remove abrasion marks and also checked each foot (that touches the ground very close up…) and it’s fresh/unscathed…
Also I can see there is zero dust or bug life behind Gimbal… spotless…and no abrasion on the arms where they touch the body (that shows quite quickly on the Air 3 after 2/3 arms extensions
Also looked in motors…- pristine…
I have had two DJI refurbs before and there see tell-tale signs
Of course it might be a complete refurb after a total crash, but I find that strange after a December Manufacturing date
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Good result there 
If is refurbished the 10th character of the serial number will be an R or an S.
@Edison thanks and interesting…
No R or S in the S/N and 10th char is a 2
So based on your info it looks to be new new 