207 good flights and literally fell 400 ft. from the sky.

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I AM BAFFLED. 207 Flights and never had this happen. All was well as I was flying back. No issues.... then simply spun out of control to the ground. Thankfully it slammed into the neighbors yard... and not their kids or house.

I've called DJI, they sent an RMA and it's been FedExed to DJI in California for diagnostics of the "problem". We'll see I guess. Fingers crossed.

Any input form you guys is welcome as I'm speechless as to exactly what happened. Has anyone had to get a replacement or repair? I'm assuming it'll be quite a while.

Before flight:
Compass: Good
IMU Mod: 1500-ish
Battery Cell Voltages: Equal and Good

Video from the app here:
http://youtu.be/sXzBsKHcBI4IMG_3478.JPG IMG_3479.JPG IMG_3480.JPG
 
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Ouch sorry for the pain. We can all feel that one. Hopefully the flight log can shed some light on it. Just guessing would be just that. Gonna take diagnostics and log to find the problem. Good luck!
 
You just expressed the perfect reason for "not" flying over neighborhoods.................

"Thankfully it slammed into the neighbors yard... and not their kids or house....."

I've been a vocal opponent of flying in "the neighborhood" since day one here. I don't get it. At all.

And sorry about your bird.
 
You just expressed the perfect reason for "not" flying over neighborhoods.................

"Thankfully it slammed into the neighbors yard... and not their kids or house....."

I've been a vocal opponent of flying in "the neighborhood" since day one here. I don't get it. At all.

And sorry about your bird.
I agree. You're 100% right. As a drone pilot that's also constantly harping about safely, I'm humbled and embarrassed by this. The only difference in my event and many other bone-head events where something "bad" happened.... is nothing "bad" happened. The price of the drone is nothing in comparison. Hard lesson learned and I was more lucky than I deserve. Bitter pill to swallow... I need some water.
 
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Always make me sad to see a Phallen Phantom :oops:
Well, at least now we know the number of flights you can get out of a P3
I'm going to take a WAG and guess a motor failure

The saying goes....
There's 2 groups of Phantom flyers....those who have crashed, and those who will....
 
Sorry to hear about your loss! Very lucky it didn't damage someone's property or someone.

As for the saying stated above,

Being in group 1 does not exclude you from joining group 2.

Currently I have experienced being in group 1, but unless I quit flying today, I am fairly certain I am also in group 2.
 
Quick question fhagan02.....

All 4 motors still attached?
Are any of them locked and won't spin now?
 
Quick question fhagan02.....

All 4 motors still attached?
Are any of them locked and won't spin now?
I've already shipped it to DJI but the motors "felt" loose enough. They were still attached.
Damnedest thing. It's absolutely got me baffled. 5 mph wind. 6 minutes into a perfect flight. All stats normal in the app. Over 60% battery and all cell voltages even. Flying in a straight line at 400 feet and literally fell/spun out of the sky.
 
You realize a person is literally THOUSANDS of time more likely to be hurt by a car than a flying anything right?! Looking at AMA statistics alone, which only looks at flying evens and injuries... so EVERYONE there is in close proximity to fly "stuff" and less than 100 a year are hurt. So ya might want to stop driving! Its pretty scary!
 
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Also, the FAA wants to restrict drones so that you cannot fly over people........
Hmmm....Last time I checked Commercial jets with hundreds of people on board and weighing in at hundreds of tons fly over HEAVILY congested cities every single day.

Are drones really that serious a threat?

Will a few people get hurt occasionally? Yes.
Is the danger as big as the hysterical bureaucrats are making it seem? No.
 
I've already shipped it to DJI but the motors "felt" loose enough. They were still attached.
Damnedest thing. It's absolutely got me baffled. 5 mph wind. 6 minutes into a perfect flight. All stats normal in the app. Over 60% battery and all cell voltages even. Flying in a straight line at 400 feet and literally fell/spun out of the sky.

Something flops into the camera view in the lower left corner view at 00:21 JUST before the loss of control.

Any idea what that was?

Bird? Part of the drone?
 
I AM BAFFLED. 207 Flights and never had this happen. All was well as I was flying back. No issues.... then simply spun out of control to the ground. Thankfully it slammed into the neighbors yard... and not their kids or house.

I've called DJI, they sent an RMA and it's been FedExed to DJI in California for diagnostics of the "problem". We'll see I guess. Fingers crossed.

Any input form you guys is welcome as I'm speechless as to exactly what happened. Has anyone had to get a replacement or repair? I'm assuming it'll be quite a while.

Before flight:
Compass: Good
IMU Mod: 1500-ish
Battery Cell Voltages: Equal and Good

Video from the app here:
http://youtu.be/sXzBsKHcBI4View attachment 29341 View attachment 29342 View attachment 29343

its the same behaviour i've seen in the firsts p3 video crash, identical, p3 become crazy turning on itself like a tornado. As i read the root cause should be a compass fault.

Have you done the compass dance before start to fly?

Afaik, if you want a response before DJI you can upload the flight log on healthydrones.com (or something like that). This site shoul analyze the log and check what's was wrong
 
its the same behaviour i've seen in the firsts p3 video crash, identical, p3 become crazy turning on itself like a tornado. As i read the root cause should be a compass fault.

Have you done the compass dance before start to fly?

Afaik, if you want a response before DJI you can upload the flight log on healthydrones.com (or something like that). This site shoul analyze the log and check what's was wrong
Great. Thanks for the info!
 
well it is not necessary to have a compass fault in order to crash. No matter if you have 1 or 1001 flights an ESC may fail and result into a flip of the aircraft and finally crash.
 
well it is not necessary to have a compass fault in order to crash. No matter if you have 1 or 1001 flights an ESC may fail and result into a flip of the aircraft and finally crash.
 
well it is not necessary to have a compass fault in order to crash. No matter if you have 1 or 1001 flights an ESC may fail and result into a flip of the aircraft and finally crash.
 
Wondering about the fast gimbal movements. Saw it in the right in the video.
 
Is it possible that it might be a mechanical issue? After 207 flights maybe the motor bearings are worn and one of them was intermittently binding up causing the bird to spin. Then it progressed to the point of a crash?
 
Is it possible that it might be a mechanical issue? After 207 flights maybe the motor bearings are worn and one of them was intermittently binding up causing the bird to spin. Then it progressed to the point of a crash?
 

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