DJI Phantom 3 took a little swim

[Fly Dawg]

Solely charged the battery between the flights and took off.

I can't recall off the top of my head, but I have seen this before in threads around about changing batteries and issues after that. If I recall correctly, it involved several models and ONLY with the latest firmware if I am not mistaken. That could be an issue as well. For now results are inconclusive. But for the moment I am still boggled as to why the original home point over water was generated before takeoff, even though you were quite some distance away and that point never changed throughout the flight. That to me sounds like an Aircraft issue, however, that can not be proven without more detailed analysis.

 

[austincwelch]

Is there anything else I can provide? as I mentioned in the original post, we dived for the aircraft this morning but the visibility below about 50 feet is just about black.... and who knows how far the currents took it. The likelihood of finding it is VERY low.... The main reason I'm inquiring is because I ultimately would like to see DJI replace the aircraft..... I feel (and am confident) that I tried everything I could have to terminate the landing sequence and stop the aircraft's descent. Like I said, I reached out to DJI and will update with their reply, but I wanted to get the take on the data that I provided.

 

[austincwelch]

I really appreciate your time/thoughts, Fly Dawg (and others). It just sucks.... was literally heart-wrenching to watch it slowly descend and descend and descend into the water and not be able to do anything.

 

[tevek]

FWIW, there have been a number of reports on a forum over here that are displaying similar symptoms to yours after a battery changeout. The app reverts to logged out/beginner status and you either have to log in again or has been suggested by DJI uninstall/reinstall the app. Not much good to you now obviously, but being its a PS3 that doesn't have obstacle avoidance, those messages suggest either a hardware failure on the drone or the app assuming a mind of its own. Not sure if you waited for your HP to be recorded prior to take off but, as mentioned, you received that message over water so the prompt should have alerted you to the fact that something is amiss.
Not sure of the area where you are flying that may have led to the number of interference messages you received and the number of landing cancelled prompts, but unless it was in critical battery auto land, which doesn't look to be the case, you should have been able to take control and manually bring it back.
I suspect that DJI will want the drone back to do the autopsy, which is impractical. Must admit there's some crazy data in the log, hopefully they can see sense and look after you. Good luck and sorry for your loss.

 

[Fly Dawg]

I really appreciate your time/thoughts, Fly Dawg (and others). It just sucks.... was literally heart-wrenching to watch it slowly descend and descend and descend into the water and not be able to do anything.

No problem. That's one thing that I love about this forum. More often times than not People are willing to help, when possible. And usually, it is generally much faster than anything you could get from DJI. At least it gives one a great starting point, especially so for an aircraft loss, and the fact that others genuinely do care about other OP's. There are very few exceptions, but there are a few. As @tevek mentioned, there is some crazy data in the log. And again, sorry for the loss.

 

[andyimages]

I am naturally conservative, probably would take at least the first three over land...

 

[mindstorm]

Sorry for your loss. I have yet to fly near or over water myself. I have read in other threads here that when flying over water it's best switch RTH to HOVER when loosing connection. This would avoid any mishaps with the RTH feature many have reported. Hover mode is a option for p3 right? I realize your take off point was over land and didn't expect this to happen. I spend hours a week reading many topics in this forum and make notes of many great tips shared in this forum. Hopefully DJI will come through for you with your AC loss.

 

[christian w]

Could it have been possible that after the disconnection it changed the home point to the aircrafts coordinates? Obviously something was wrong but that could have been the problem.

 

[christian w]

Also very sorry to here your loss and I have also run one of mine into a lake

 

[Jim abbatoy]

I'm far from being an expert, but I recently had to do a firmware update on my P3P. After the update all my settings were back to default. Is it possible you were set to beginner mode with a lost signal action to land?

 

[LSDMT]

Nobody has asked this yet but – I have seen situations where the drone erroneously thinks you are too close to a no-fly zone and it auto lands. Regardless of what is below it. seen it happen to a guys craft out in Hawaii. He was a half-mile from a no-fly zone and it thought he was in the no-fly zone and just decided to descend into the ocean.

 

[andyimages]

I'm far from being an expert, but I recently had to do a firmware update on my P3P. After the update all my settings were back to default. Is it possible you were set to beginner mode with a lost signal action to land?

DJI covering its ***.

 

[JCBArc]

I might be wrong as I am no expert here, but after a recent update of of the DJI app including firmware updates (which were carried out with one battery on board the drone) I carried out a successful flight, then changed battery, and tried to start out again; the drone would not lift off, an error message appeared and then flashed out of sight and the system worked well again - could have been a delay to update battery no. 2 firmware?

 

[Signal Tracer]

Are there cell phone towers in the area? I've had this problem before with a clear visual of my surroundings, good lift-off, head out about 200 feet at 150 feet AGL and experience faulty telemetry. Was able to recover. Fly back to that same spot and again run into the same problem. Recover and return. Stayed away from that particular area and bird operation ran fine. After packing up, I rode around the area and found 5 cell towers within a half mile of where I was having trouble. Question in my mind was, "Why there and not everywhere?"
This was in the Canandaigua, NY area.