Battery smoking in flight catching fire

Joined
Aug 30, 2016
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Age
65
While flying phantom 3 pro at 200' for approximately 6 minutes smoke was observed trailing drone. Attempted to land on residential street as smoke increased. At 83' drone quit and dropped from the air trailing smoke. DJI states no errors noted, must have over heated in hot weather. I sent flight log, photo and weather report. Another tech responded that i must have got water on battery. Clear, dry and temp in 70's. I have photos of burned battery and drone. Battery still smoking when pic was taken. DJI stating battery and damage not under warranty. Anyone else experience battery smoking in flight?
 

Attachments

  • image.jpeg
    image.jpeg
    2.6 MB · Views: 1,768
  • image.jpeg
    image.jpeg
    1.4 MB · Views: 1,972
  • image.jpeg
    image.jpeg
    734.4 KB · Views: 3,064
Aside from a toasty drone, you were fortunate to have not lost a hand, holding it up for the camera.

Not sure that is even legal to post back to China...?
Talk about a story, for the Grandchildren... ;-)

At which point into this Debacle, did the camera get detached? Ha

RedHotPoker
 
wow I would press dji hard about this if they didn't make it right you tube video time
 
Holy smokes! (sorry). Seriously, this sucks. I haven't heard of lipos exploding, but plenty have caught fire before.
 
Does anyone remember the Lipo's that were exploding inside of most hover boards last year?
They were made in China! I can only assume it was due to the crash of the aircraft or already a damaged battery.
DJI's batteries have been very good and safe for me with the proper maintenance and care.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Double_DoubleG
There was nothing abnormal in the healthy drones battery data?


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
That is one for the books I have seen one of my batteries hit 65C after only 5 mins of fly time.turns out that my main board one of the esc on board was going bad.this also cause EXTrem heat to the motors as well.funny thing it would still fly!
 
I have 2 self balance boards for over a year now and not a problem. Of course after I opened them up and clean up wires inside. Most of burned and exploded boards due to lack of quality control. Their batteries are all well packed and high quality.
Back to OP story, I am really sorry for your lost, but it's hard to understand how your bird got damaged while flying if there was no abnormal to other parts.
In general, battery would burn or explode if it got overcharged or over current discharged like short circuit or high temperatures. Otherwise it should be OK.

Sent from my D6616 using Tapatalk
 
Terrible, feel for you mate. I just don't get how DJI can absolve themselves on this one. Hope they do the right thing and replace the AC.
 
Tom im guessing you wont be lying down on this one. I wouldnt be comming at the no warranty stance. Its a joke. How many flights on the battery? What was your charge % at launch? Do you have a health drones record of the last smoke free flight with that battery? Quibbling about a bad cell I can see, saying your on your own with this is a joke. I would post over on the DJI forum asking for an opinion.
 
thats crap.

What was the battery temp reading in logs ?

Dont let DJI put you off, peruse the claim for a replacement.
 
Wow. I just got back from Cancun where the temp was 100 degrees with at least 80% humidity. I flew about 20 missions on my P3P without any problems. Now I feel kind of lucky after seeing these photos.
 
Was the battery fully charged before the flight, and did you disable the low battery warnings?

This sort of thing can happen to stressed lipo batteries if they are discharged too much.
 
While flying phantom 3 pro at 200' for approximately 6 minutes smoke was observed trailing drone. Attempted to land on residential street as smoke increased. At 83' drone quit and dropped from the air trailing smoke. DJI states no errors noted, must have over heated in hot weather. I sent flight log, photo a I nd weather report. Another tech responded that i must have got water on battery. Clear, dry and temp in 70's. I have photos of burned battery and drone. Battery still smoking when pic was taken. DJI stating battery and damage not under warranty. Anyone else experience battery smoking in flight?
Dude this is crazy. I'm glad you came out of it injury free. Thanks for posting your photos.
 
Was it an OEM battery or aftermarket?
I thought that non OEM batteries did not work at all. Has that changed now?
 
Last edited:
While flying phantom 3 pro at 200' for approximately 6 minutes smoke was observed trailing drone. Attempted to land on residential street as smoke increased. At 83' drone quit and dropped from the air trailing smoke. DJI states no errors noted, must have over heated in hot weather. I sent flight log, photo and weather report. Another tech responded that i must have got water on battery. Clear, dry and temp in 70's. I have photos of burned battery and drone. Battery still smoking when pic was taken. DJI stating battery and damage not under warranty. Anyone else experience battery smoking in flight?

Sorry for your loss!

How old was your AC?

Kurt

PS
I own one also.
 
Tom I think you are in the drivers seat on this one! There is NO WAY this should happen regardless of what the DJI clones say!!

This is a very real SAFETY issue so DJI should be offering you a replacement free of charge. Not to mention it was a malfunction of one of their components that caused the fire, and that should be warrantied.

As someone else mentioned, I would post those pictures on DJI's forum and see what the moderators say there. They are the only ones that are able to straighten out issues for people?
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,355
Members
104,934
Latest member
jody.paugh@fullerandsons.