Help me understand what went wrong here

I'm beginning to think loss of compass control. The first clip shows the red arrow going all over the place, so something was affecting it. I have never flown up there before, but a guy on one of my FB pages has, so it can't be anything to do with the surrounding area.

I didn't do the dance, as the location is quite close to where I live and normally fly and I have been up to 40 miles away from the last dance location and the aircraft flew perfectly normally then.

Anyway it's gone now and that's that. So now I have one P2, four controllers (1 x P1, 1xP2V, 1xV+ and the new one with the shoulder wheel), a P1 battery charger, two Vision chargers, 2xRE500 range extenders, three batteries and some accessories.

I wish DJI would sell the Phantom only without all the other stuff.

Not sure I'll be replacing this one. I knew it would crash some time, I'm just glad nobody was underneath it. It's been fun and in the small town where I live, I have become quite the z-list celebrity as everyone got to see the video clips. One got 11,000+ hits on YouTube!

Thanks for all your kind comments, by the way.
 
I'm going to be checking to see where that compass wire connects to and make sure it can't ever come loose. Not saying that's what happened to you, but it has me second guessing everything.
 
Very sad to read your story - it makes us all shudder. It seems to me that when somethings going to go wrong there's not a lot you can do about it - except for things like happened to me today for which there was no excuse.
Thanks for all your input to the forum - it's nice to see people from the UK and Eire.
 
I see you had N/A indicated on your screen instead of Naza-M. What version firmware were you using?
 
My condolences Connor. :(
It seems that your compass was crazy (in the first movie.)
I hope you continue to fly with the Phantom series :)
 
I had very similar experience, actually twice - the first time it hit deep water, 2nd time I had screen recorded and the symptoms are very similar, it was repaired without any questions by DJI Germany, unfortunately root cause wasn't shared with me: http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/2nd-flyaway-and-crash-in-8-months-beware-and-install-scr.35439/
I do believe something went wrong with Compass, IMU but I doubt that Compass calibration would prevent it - DJI didn't even ask about it. I can see, that in your video it started drifting at the moment you pressed video recording, in my case it was after I changed gimbal level. I can also see in your video, that the nose of phantom and the red arrow do not match probably.
The biggest problem in your case probably was to try it for the 2nd time, especially next to the water... Unfortunately my confidence is very low with Vision plus (didn't have issues with P1)
I also want to encourage everybody using screen recorder - it's step number 1 in my pre-flight checklist, you can even automate it to run every time you run Vision Plus app - it's really worth it, especially for the beginners as you can see all the parameters...
 
I had very similar experience, actually twice - the first time it hit deep water, 2nd time I had screen recorded and the symptoms are very similar, it was repaired without any questions by DJI Germany, unfortunately root cause wasn't shared with me: http://www.phantompilots.com/threads/2nd-flyaway-and-crash-in-8-months-beware-and-install-scr.35439/
I do believe something went wrong with Compass, IMU but I doubt that Compass calibration would prevent it - DJI didn't even ask about it. I can see, that in your video it started drifting at the moment you pressed video recording, in my case it was after I changed gimbal level. I can also see in your video, that the nose of phantom and the red arrow do not match probably.
The biggest problem in your case probably was to try it for the 2nd time, especially next to the water... Unfortunately my confidence is very low with Vision plus (didn't have issues with P1)
I also want to encourage everybody using screen recorder - it's step number 1 in my pre-flight checklist, you can even automate it to run every time you run Vision Plus app - it's really worth it, especially for the beginners as you can see all the parameters...
Which application do you use to record screen?
 
The more I read about this the more I wonder. Just throwing a few things out for thought. Before and after my crash I was using two apps pretty regularly, the stock DJI app and a 3rd party Android app. In the 3rd party app, every once in a while (probably 8-10 times in 50 flights) I would get an "MCU configuration error". That's all it said. I would bring it in, hook it up to the PC and everything would check good. I started bitching at the 3rd party app developer because I was very concerned about it and thought it was coming from his app. His response was that he had no control over what information the bird was transmitting. That it was not his software and that the DJI SDK was kicking that information out. He was simply passing it on from the DJI SDK. I began flipping from the DJI app and the 3rd party app. I've never received the error with the DJI app. When I got it with the 3rd party app and would reboot, it would reappear without any errors and would fly fine. Is it possible that maybe it isn't the 3rd party app that's causing the error. That there are actually intermittent errors going on with some of these MCU's and that the DJI app just isn't passing it on to us, so we're unaware of it? Just something to think about.

Just so sorry to see your bird gone and as it seems many others. Possibly me next time.
 
Sorry to hear about that, compass issues are the worst. Definitely looks like a compass issue. There really should be more than one mechanism in the Phantom to prevent compass issues from totally destroying the quadcopter. It's definitely a choking point, that if that one module fails or has issues, then good luck getting the Phantom back. If there was some code in the firmware to check for abrupt anomalies in the compass shortly after take off and use the gyroscope to stabilize for emergencies...
 
I agree it looks like a compass error. I have seen other flights where the compass isn't calibrated or was calibrated over metal and the Phantom flies with that 'toilet bowl' effect. That looks just like what yours did. The fact that your compass icon was spinning also confirms a bad compass.

Sorry for your loss :(
 
I hate when this happens, especially to one of the good guys. When I started reading the OP and saw that you didn't mention calibrating the compass I skipped the rest of your post knowing that was the likely cause. Personally I wouldn't say for sure what the issue was without being able to look over some flight data. That is what helps if you also have flytrex on board that if you lose the quad even it water your flight data is on their website.

Forgive me if you already answered this, but what are your plans from this point? I'm going to get one of these new DJI units we get to see on weds.
 
I agree it looks like a compass error. I have seen other flights where the compass isn't calibrated or was calibrated over metal and the Phantom flies with that 'toilet bowl' effect. That looks just like what yours did. The fact that your compass icon was spinning also confirms a bad compass.

Sorry for your loss :(
As I wrote I think is a compass issue too because I've had this behavior too for an error of mine but the point is: why when the FCK compass has problems the bird inclination change? The compass should control only north south east ovest and stop. I can understand if the bird don't follow for example IOC mode when compass has issue but I really can't understand that the bird loose horizon due to the compass. This is a software issue that DJI should correct asap.
 
As I wrote I think is a compass issue too because I've had this behavior too for an error of mine but the point is: why when the FCK compass has problems the bird inclination change?

It's true that the compass headings are normally restricted to a horizontal plane, but if something screwy happens with that unit, I'm wondering if that compass plane can change from horizontal to a 45 degree angle.
 
As I wrote I think is a compass issue too because I've had this behavior too for an error of mine but the point is: why when the FCK compass has problems the bird inclination change? The compass should control only north south east ovest and stop. I can understand if the bird don't follow for example IOC mode when compass has issue but I really can't understand that the bird loose horizon due to the compass. This is a software issue that DJI should correct asap.

You would need to see the DJI Naza code to understand the behavior. I'm thinking there may be a clash between incorrect compass data and GPS data which causes the Naza unit to freak out.

I also believe this could be addressed in software.
 
Why don't you read the link in my post :) It's SCR 5+ Pro and phone has to be rooted. I would really change a phone in case you can't root it / install the recorder.
Try mobizen. Free and no need to root.
 
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Really sorry you lost your bird Conner .:(


Really don't matter Frank if it's a good guy or bad it's always sad when this happens o_O
 
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With all the evidence you have, are you planning on contacting DJI about this? It is rather obvious there was a system failure of some sort and I would hope they would assist in someway.

Really sorry for your loss. Sucks.
 

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