DJI provided the AAIB with statistics on 44 accidents with the Matrice 200 series occurring internationally in the 6 month period October 2019 and March 2019. 10 accidents were due to ESC failure, of which 4 were reported as being water damage. 17 accidents had unknown cause and 12 were due to failure of a propeller motor.
The report also tabulates the results from a total of 16 Matrice 200 series inflight failures in the UK from December 2017 to July 2019 (table 4, p. 19). Five incidents were due to firmware issues, four were due to ESC failures in light rain.
The same AAIB Bulletin also includes “correspondence investigations” for the following accidents:
Reported Accidents Involving DJI Matrice 210, UK, October 2018 – July 2019
| Date | Cause and Conditions | Page(s) in AAIB Bulletin | |
| 15 October 2018 | ESC failure, drizzle | pp. 71-73 | link |
| 19 January 2019 | ESC failure, light drizzle | pp. 74-75 | link |
| 3 March 2019 | Motor failure, rain and drizzle | pp. 76-77 | link |
| 18 March 2019 | Motor failure | p. 78 | link |
| 20 April 2019 | Motor stall, arm breakage | p. 79 | link |
| 11 June 2019 | Likely motor or ESC failure | pp. 80-81 | link |
| 28 July 2019 | Propulsion error No 2 motor, light rain | p. 82 | link |
These accidents generally resulted in the total loss of the UAV.
Note: This data should not be taken to indicate that the Matrice 200 series is any more dangerous than any other UAV. Rather, it is indicative of the types of failure that might occur. In addition, accident reports tend to be made by the more professional operators so will reflect the type of craft utilised by those operators.