Has anyone crashed and survived unscathed?

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I’m curious, how many people have managed to crash their drone (such as flying into a tree) and escaped with their drone completely intact and fully operational?

Would love to hear stories!
 
I've owned several Phantoms, crashed 2 of them (P3S) into trees (trying to fly ATTI mode on a windy day) and the only issues I had was the shell halves becoming dislodged at the alignment tabs, a cracked gimbal mounting plate and a dead motor about a week after one of my crashes. Made repairs myself, no further issues.

I had one of my P3Ps go wonky on me about a month ago. Was setting up to do a paid gig when it disconnected from the remote and went into RTH, shot straight up into a tree and tumbled down. Again, the dislodged shell half (easily fixed) and no further issus.

Oh - a few prop replacements on all incidents.
 
It doesn't take much of a fall to damage a P3/P4 style DJI drone. A few feet will do it if you hit wrong.

I had a mid-air crash with another drone. I managed to get down in one piece but my friend with the other drone wasn't so lucky. His lost power and dropped from 100 feet. It landed on soft grass, but still wound up with a bent arm.

Here's a 2 minute video..

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Last edited:
I had my Autel auto land and hit a bunch of trees due to a beta firmware issue. The worst part was it happened over a state forest and I had to hike in and locate it. Had a scuff on it and some dirty props so it lived to fly another day.

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I've backed into tree limbs, caught a prop and watched it tumble (down through the tree) 60' with nothing but a scuff mark on a couple of arms. Didn't even break a prop or get a scratch on the camera lens.

I've backed into limbs and watched one fall 12' and bent an arm, broke landing gear and 3 out of 4 props. It took me several hours of a heat gun and some choice words to get everything fixed and operational again. That was LAST October and she's still flying perfectly and making us $$.

You never know it all depends on what it hits, how much momentum, what the motors are doing, and how you hold you mouth at time of impact LOL.
 
My worst one wasn't too bad. Phantom 1. Apparently I had a bad battery and sent it off. About 40 seconds in, it started to come down. It still had some power, and I frantically tried to get it to come back, but not enough power to do much but slow the descent a little.

Luckily, it was early spring and I was over a marshy area that was pretty dry. Old cattail leaves all bunched up and bent over made for a soft landing. Funny because I was using a GoPro, and even from inside the waterproof housing, you can hear me exclaim, "Son of a #$%^!!" as it hit the ground and flipped. But, after a quick inspection and a bit of a wipedown, it was fine and lived to fly again.

The video is short; about 55 seconds.

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, and even from inside the waterproof housing, you can hear me exclaim, "Son of a #$%^!!"

You must be a very tiny person to fit inside that case LOL! J/K :)
 
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Few years ago my P2V+ fell out of the sky from about 50ft on to a grass field, my gimbal protector smashed but nothing else.
I spent many hours wondering what happened, and after ruling out all other possibilities, I must have done an inadvertent CSC.
 
Few years ago my P2V+ fell out of the sky from about 50ft on to a grass field, my gimbal protector smashed but nothing else.
I spent many hours wondering what happened, and after ruling out all other possibilities, I must have done an inadvertent CSC.
I was lucky camera-wise. This was a P1, and no gimbal. Just a GoPro bolted directly to the fuselage. I expect that would survive most any crash.
 
Litchi mission I had run multiple times .
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It doesn't take much of a fall to damage a P3/P4 style DJI drone. A few feet will do it if you hit wrong.

I had a mid-air crash with another drone. I managed to get down in one piece but my friend with the other drone wasn't so lucky. His lost power and dropped from 100 feet. It landed on soft grass, but still wound up with a bent arm.

Here's a 2 minute video..

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At 1:34 you can see parts flying off.
 
I had my Autel auto land and hit a bunch of trees due to a beta firmware issue. The worst part was it happened over a state forest and I had to hike in and locate it. Had a scuff on it and some dirty props so it lived to fly another day.

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Lucky you found it in that brush...the red helped. How long did take to find?
 
Lucky you found it in that brush...the red helped. How long did take to find?
I went right out after it happened with my TX in tow. Doesn't sound that difficult until you see the 14" wide panel antenna on it! :confused: It was pretty thick and I was always keeping an eye out for bears. I spent about 3 hours round trip. I was using an iPad with no cellular connection so no map, but once I was closer to it I got a signal back and I finish tracking it by the aircraft signal. Even being orange I didn't spot it until I was about 8' - 10' from it. The orange really helps in the air though, I can easily see it a half mile away.
 
Litchi mission I had run multiple times .
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Wow... well I’m really embarrassed to say that when I posted this question I had just the same day crashed my drone in an incident very similar to yours.

I was in a National Park manually following my car (being driven by the mrs) on a very long, dead straight bit of road. Literally no trees except one dead skeleton tree - no leaves or anything, and as the sun was positioned I literally could not see it.

I was flying pretty much full stick ahead and saw it at the very last minute but it was too late. I crashed straight into it and it immediately disconnected. I was an emotional wreck at that point and we turned around and drove back to the tree.

Low and behold the legs of my phantom 4 Pro we’re hooked over a tiny little branch up in the tree - the battery had come out and was nowhere to be seen (there was a very bushy swamp directly under the tree along side the road).

I had to park my 4x4 right off the edge of the road as close to the tree as I could. I then climbed up on to my roof rack and had to use my manfrotto tripod to reach out and unhook the drone.

At this point I was confused why it wasn’t in pieces - it was perfectly intact and I thought maybe the gimble is definitely broken. I whacked a new battery in and it actually still works no issues whatsoever.

I immediately changed the props and took it to a quiet spot for a test flight. Everything works perfectly.

Oh and as I was taking a photo of the tree I crashed into I looked down and could see the green lights from my battery. I got down on my knees and reached down into the soaking swamp and pulled it out - it was about a third of the way sitting upright in water. I gave it a shake off and took it with me. 3 days later it still lights up fine when I press the button but I’m too scared to plug it in the charger or dare I say it put it back in the drone???

I will upload footage of this when I get home later this week.
 
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I went right out after it happened with my TX in tow. Doesn't sound that difficult until you see the 14" wide panel antenna on it! :confused: It was pretty thick and I was always keeping an eye out for bears. I spent about 3 hours round trip. I was using an iPad with no cellular connection so no map, but once I was closer to it I got a signal back and I finish tracking it by the aircraft signal. Even being orange I didn't spot it until I was about 8' - 10' from it. The orange really helps in the air though, I can easily see it a half mile away.
I was wondering if that was orange or red...is that a skin, or did you buy a body that color?
 
I went right out after it happened with my TX in tow. Doesn't sound that difficult until you see the 14" wide panel antenna on it! :confused: It was pretty thick and I was always keeping an eye out for bears. I spent about 3 hours round trip. I was using an iPad with no cellular connection so no map, but once I was closer to it I got a signal back and I finish tracking it by the aircraft signal. Even being orange I didn't spot it until I was about 8' - 10' from it. The orange really helps in the air though, I can easily see it a half mile away.
Oh and that was great heads up on walking to it waiting for signal...just caught that...good job!
 

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