Crashed My P4P - 11/14/17

[DirectorDrew]

So it finally happened. Crashed my P4P. I owned a P3P since launch so I been flying about 2 years.

Let me note I did purchase the DJI Refresh Care Protection Plan.

Now my question for anybody reading this and actually care to watch the video, I posted the dropbox link.
I was flying straight, very slow motion in Tripod mode. I was getting shots of buildings for my church. I was flying through tighter spots than this and no problem. This was literally the last shot and right as I finished the P4P suddenly shoots forward (which is odd in Tripod Mode as it moves way slower than this). Then, it spirals and video cuts out before it even hits the building. Retrieved the Aircraft. Setting up a repair form now.

Do you think this would be labels at exclusions #3 "damages from unsuitable environments"? I had direct line of sight of the aircraft and was no further than 200 ft away. It was also about 150 ft high. The aircraft lost control on its own. As you can see from the video, the video cuts off before the aircraft even hit the building. This was definitely an error in the aircraft not me. The footage I uploaded on dropbox is the raw footage unedited. Thats all I have. I was kinda hoping I would have footage of the actual impact and fall as I seen from other videos. But, the fact that it cuts off before impact makes me even more sure that this was a malfunction on the aircraft.

What are your thoughts, Do you think they will replace the unit. Should I have to pay the $100 replacement fee for the first unit? or is this an issue on their end which should be covered by them at no cost for me?

Before anybody bashes me, I have seen plenty of videos of people flying by buildings with no problems, I have also flown by plenty of buildings with no issues. I was flying in even tighter situations than the incident earlier in the day. I definitely lost confidence and I will no longer ever fly by any building or anybody for that matter incase this were to happen again.

Dropbox - DJI_0012.MOV

 

[Mark The Droner]

Looks to me like you likely lost GPS/Glonass and the wind put it into the side of the building. But I'm just guessing.

You can upload your log and post the link here and people will tell you what they think happened based on the data: DJI Flight Log Viewer

site credit: msinger

The vid cut out early because the AC lost power due to the crash and the last few secs of the vid were lost because the camera was not shut off correctly.

 

[John Locke]

DJI will definitely ask you to pay the refresh fee, regardless if it's the drone's fault or not. That's what they tried to do with my Mavic when the gimbal stopped working. The craft had never been crashed or mistreated in any way, the gimbal just stopped working out of the blue. Yet DJI wanted me to pay the refresh fee. I refused and ask them to explain any pilot error that made the gimbal fail. When they couldn't they finally agreed to cover it under warranty. So beware, DJI's default attitude is the customer has to pay the refresh fee if you have a refresh policy. Once you find out what happened with the GPS signal, you can plead your case to DJI. If you lost GPS, I don't think DJI would accept responsibility for that, but I may be wrong.

 

[HighTechPauper]

The last thing shows the craft become unstable and it starts yawing to the left, seems like more than just losing it's fix in the air and going to atti mode. I would follow the advice given here and recover as much info as you can before even thinking about shipping it off to dji. Msinger and a number of others will likely give you pointers on getting as much info as possible but you can only do that if you wait a bit. I would want to know as much as possible before sending it back so you have some data and any working theories before you lose possession of the craft.

 

[F3honda4me]

Can you get the DAT file and post it here via Dropbox? This will give us the log from the craft itself which is quite detailed.

How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File

 

[MapMaker53]

Just a guess, but..
1) You no doubt lost about 80% of the sky by flying between those buildings and therefore dropped into ATTI mode.
2) It was fairly windy that day according to the trees.
3) Wind flowing between buildings is usually more intense and unpredictable and can produce unseen little vortexes within that space due to wind friction along the building surface.
4) You probably ran into a vortex in ATTI mode which caused the sudden spin and crash. It even sped up your forward movement a moment before the spin as the vortex sucked you into it.

I'll be interested in learning what the file shows.

 

[Dronefriend]

No blame here.. I could have done the same shot. Thanks for sharing, nice to be reminded of the importance of always having 100% focus in tight situations.

Wish you luck with the service procedure..

 

[DirectorDrew]

Can you get the DAT file and post it here via Dropbox? This will give us the log from the craft itself which is quite detailed.

How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File

Looks to me like you likely lost GPS/Glonass and the wind put it into the side of the building. But I'm just guessing.

You can upload your log and post the link here and people will tell you what they think happened based on the data: DJI Flight Log Viewer

site credit: msinger

The vid cut out early because the AC lost power due to the crash and the last few secs of the vid were lost because the camera was not shut off correctly.

Ok so after waiting for battery to recharge, finally got into DJI FLY LOG. This is my first time using this so I'm not exactly sure what to be looking for. I see FLY001 all the way to FLY062. Not sure if I'm looking for the first or last so I uploaded both to my drop box.

FLY062

Dropbox - FLY062.DAT

FLY001

Dropbox - FLY000.DAT


Let me know if I did this right or anything else you are looking for.

 

[Mark The Droner]

Please see post 2. Follow the instructions in the link.

 

[Dronefriend]

Ok so after waiting for battery to recharge, finally got into DJI FLY LOG. This is my first time using this so I'm not exactly sure what to be looking for. I see FLY001 all the way to FLY062. Not sure if I'm looking for the first or last so I uploaded both to my drop box.

FLY062

Dropbox - FLY062.DAT

FLY001

Dropbox - FLY000.DAT


Let me know if I did this right or anything else you are looking for.



Not sure if I misunderstood your comment. But, I always had line of sight on my aircraft as mentioned in my first post. The aircraft was no more than 200 ft from me and 150 ft high.

I just meant I would never bash you for this mistake (if it indeed was crash due to ATTI > wind). Countering stuff like that need you to stay absolutely fully focused and prepared, all the time, and I for one know I'm not.

I Prepare for lot of things but accidentally going ATTI and getting sucked into a wind couple of seconds later sure ain't one of those things. And it's nice to be reminded that danger can always be there, even though it might seem safe.

 

[DirectorDrew]

I just meant I would never bash you for this mistake (if it indeed was crash due to ATTI > wind). Countering stuff like that need you to stay absolutely fully focused and prepared, all the time, and I for one know I'm not.

I Prepare for lot of things but accidentally going ATTI and getting sucked into a wind couple of seconds later sure ain't one of those things. And it's nice to be reminded that danger can always be there, even though it might seem safe.

Ok I understand. Yeah I knew I lost control immediately. I had someone with me helping and I told him immediately I lost control and it was going to crash. I watched it spiral and I was trying to compensate. But, the spinning and the panning in one certain direction was impossible to get out of. I almost felt as if the controller was not communicating after it started spinning.

 

[DirectorDrew]

Please see post 2. Follow the instructions in the link.

Tried to upload the FLY000.DAT file into there and got this error. "Error: You may only upload DJI GO TXT flight logs (e.g. "DJIFlightRecord_2016-02-11_[12-39-59].txt") or Litchi CSV flight logs (e.g. "2016-02-07_15-39-59_v2.csv").

 

[Dronefriend]

Ok I understand. Yeah I knew I lost control immediately. I had someone with me helping and I told him immediately I lost control and it was going to crash. I watched it spiral and I was trying to compensate. But, the spinning and the panning in one certain direction was impossible to get out of. I almost felt as if the controller was not communicating after it started spinning.

To me that more sounds like compass going whack because of metal structures (the buildings). And maybe not so much ATTI and wind. In ATTI you always have control, although can be hard with wind but shouldn't spin..

Compass error is exceedingly hard or impossible to counter when in P-GPS mode, only way to do that is actually activating ATTI and bypass compass and GPS.

That is actually something I am prepared for. But sometimes one doesn't have the time until impact..

In the future, when you want to fly close to something containing metal, one can "probe" it by slowly approaching it , starting with maybe 15 meters away. Check how the compass behaves and be prepared to go ATTI and get out of there. Of course, if it's a windy day one may want to reconsider shooting there at all, since ATTI, wind and buildings/objects can be a difficult situation..

Not trying to lecture you.. best of luck with everything, glad no one was hurt.

 

[DirectorDrew]

Please see post 2. Follow the instructions in the link.

Ok I have the log and I see 104 mph at one point.

I'm not sure how to share the log with you guys. But, heres the link


DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

 

[Bakersfield Quad]

Ouch, the way that air behaves between obstacles is just like the vortices between rocks in a river unpredictable and vortices are typical, not great places for quads in Atti mode.

 

[F3honda4me]

I’ll try to look at the DAT tomorrow but quick note. If magnetic interference occurs from the buildings it can cause the compass to fail which in turn will be first noticed as a spin or spiral, then the craft will realize the compass data is bad and will force the craft into ATTI. It does this by setting gps satellites to 0, which forces the ATTI mode.

 

[DirectorDrew]

I understand. I'm starting to regret such a stupid choice when people start to point out the obvious. I just have flown by plenty of houses/buildings. 80% of all my shoots are close to a house or building. I'm curious as to what you guys think DJI will do moving forward. Even with the Refresh Protection Plan, am I looking at paying for costs of repair or do you think they will cover it with a replacement unit at $100 or even do you think this is a aircraft error in which I can push them to cover costs?

 

[sar104]

This event was caused by a loss of GPS. At 108 seconds the satellite count was down to 5, which is inadequate for GPS mode. As a result the FC switched to ATTI, and since the wind speed was up around 15 mph, the aircraft immediately drifted.

By the way - those are not valid DAT files.

 

[DirectorDrew]

This event was caused by a loss of GPS. At 108 seconds the satellite count was down to 5, which is inadequate for GPS mode. As a result the FC switched to ATTI, and since the wind speed was up around 15 mph, the aircraft immediately drifted.

By the way - those are not valid DAT files.

How do I get valid DAT files?

 

[BudWalker]

How do I get valid DAT files?

it looks like you may have followed the instructions here
How to retrieve a V3 .DAT File
but for some reason those .DATs were all zeros. Never seen that before. May have extracted them properly but then somehow didn't get uploaded to Dropbox properly. I'd suggest you try it again.