Hi all.... Please help

[Reg55]

Hi,

Long time lurker here

It pains me for this to be my first post, my name is Reg and tonight I lost my Phantom 4 Pro.
I was out around 2000 feet at 200 altitude, direct line of sight, 46% battery, 17 satellites and all was looking well as I had done countless times before.
I had no warnings just a sudden ... Aircraft disconnected, which does happen some times so I did not panic I gave it some altitude to clear any obstacles which usually works.
When that failed I hit return to home on the remote, but nothing.
My Mrs waited at the home point as I ran the 2000ft to where it last was but no connection and no sign of it.
I have been over the flight record and where it says it is, is where it was last connected. It’s as if it disappeared from the sky.
I contacted local police and DJI but I am not hopeful.
CSV attached (I hope)

Airdata link

If I can provide any more information I am happy to do so, my fingers are crossed a wizard amongst you can help out

Many thanks

 

[Meta4]

I had no warnings just a sudden ... Aircraft disconnected, which does happen some times so I did not panic I gave it some altitude to clear any obstacles which usually works.
When that failed I hit return to home on the remote, but nothing.

Here's what the flight data looks like:
DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com
It helps to eliminate obvious things like the battery (it was fine) and shows the Phantom in stable flight when the recorded data just ends.
That suggests a sudden power loss.

 

[Reg55]

Thank you for the reply.
I had a look on that website and nothing stood out to me, in reading the logs and from my first hand experience I believe there was a catastrophic malfunction of some kind.
If there is anything telling in the logs it is beyond my understanding, which is definitely possible

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Thank you for the reply.
I had a look on that website and nothing stood out to me, in reading the logs and from my first hand experience I believe there was a catastrophic malfunction of some kind.
If there is anything telling in the logs it is beyond my understanding, which is definitely possible

Thanks

I can't work these out ,not clever enough but at 2610ft from home point it had 44%batt,it was at 245ft,,how high is that building on the corner across from park,,if that building higher than 245tf it would have hit it looking at direction of travel,,,,,must say that HD player pretty cool,first time I use it..ps..sorry for loss hope you can find it,,,,,also what was your action for (SRH),hover,landing,just had nother look says on airdata landed with 44% obstical avoidence was off because low light so either landed or hit something or hover in place till flat with a Auto landing on the road,unsure on class D airspace in one of your first warnings,mayby that triggered something,,smart return home setting was what I meant,it did say it was at max distance on batt being 44%.....I just add this picture,,not sure what mean but after 26 chargers this batt has bad cell,

,,,,,,,,got me thinking does left stick control heading,,isn't that mode 1,

 

[Cutaway]

So sorry mate. The only remaining answer is a catastrophic failure (like you said). Power loss is the biggest culprit...

 

[Reg55]

Thank you for the responses.

The building on the corner is only 3-4 stories high, so no where near that height. I agree with your theory as that is the straight line back.
Never before have I had it totally disconnected, I moved my position and even jumped in the car to be closer and it never connected again.
As the record reflects it had good connection and no warnings prior.
Very odd.

In regards to the left stick heading, mode 1. I am unsure what you mean, could you clarify please

I didn’t know that about the battery, could one cell be enough to cause failure or could that be a sign of things to come?

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Thank you for the responses.

The building on the corner is only 3-4 stories high, so no where near that height. I agree with your theory as that is the straight line back.
Never before have I had it totally disconnected, I moved my position and even jumped in the car to be closer and it never connected again.
As the record reflects it had good connection and no warnings prior.
Very odd.

In regards to the left stick heading, mode 1. I am unsure what you mean, could you clarify please

I didn’t know that about the battery, could one cell be enough to cause failure or could that be a sign of things to come?

Thanks

In settings for remote it has mode 1 and mode 2

,,unsure on batt but can't be good,you can click on anything around the map you posted and it gives different info like I show,but not have software to read it,the battery was interesting,temp keept going up to 101 I think

 

[Reg55]

In settings for remote it has mode 1 and mode 2 View attachment 103902

Apologies if I am having a senior moment lol
What would be the relevance or implications if this was the case?

I used the same settings as always, but would like to know if I hit or changed anything unintentionally

Thanks again

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Apologies if I am having a senior moment lol
What would be the relevance or implications if this was the case?

I used the same settings as always, but would like to know if I hit or changed anything unintentionally

Thanks again

Apologies if I am having a senior moment lol
What would be the relevance or implications if this was the case?

I used the same settings as always, but would like to know if I hit or changed anything unintentionally

Thanks again

Senior moments are good,,mode 1 instead of going up it will travel foward and right stick become the gas pedal ,,here's a pic of battery temp,,just funny time of night and day so someone will be able to explain better,,my senior moment ,was at one point when watch flight it goes backwards for bit where those hard turns start

,,,,,if anything depending on wind on return it would have been close to critical levels,but looking at the basic batt info something went wrong with batt,but no prompts like you say,did you check surroundings ,trees look quite bushy so might need to have good look,,I help but to far away,

 

[Reg55]

Senior moments are good,,mode 1 instead of going up it will travel foward and right stick become the gas pedal ,,here's a pic of battery temp,,just funny time of night and day so someone will be able to explain better,,my senior moment ,was at one point when watch flight it goes backwards for bit where those hard turns start View attachment 103903

I did notice the battery temperature which I found rather odd as it was cold last night,
I have also forwarded this to DJI but I am unsure where I stand as the drone was purchased last may

 

[Deleted member 62848]

I did notice the battery temperature which I found rather odd as it was cold last night,
I have also forwarded this to DJI but I am unsure where I stand as the drone was purchased last may

Mayby might be pushing it,if you can locate drone and it was at fault there still might be repair or exchange cost because outside the year,they might honor your call and fix for free (here's hoping),,I got to log out but be watching this,someone will pinpoint your drone soon I hope,,best luck

 

[Meta4]

Never before have I had it totally disconnected, I moved my position and even jumped in the car to be closer and it never connected again.
As the record reflects it had good connection and no warnings prior.
Very odd.

It's not odd at all.
When your Phantom shuts down mid-flight with a sudden power loss, you lose connection.
Losing connection was a symptom and not related to the cause of the incident.

I didn’t know that about the battery, could one cell be enough to cause failure or could that be a sign of things to come?

There's nothing suspicious about the battery, it was fine.
There was a minor difference in voltages between cells that showed a few times but at most, it was only 0.15 volts.
Your battery was quite healthy right through to the end of the flight.
The incident was probably due to an electronic failure.
Components can fail. That happens.

 

[Reg55]

It's not odd at all.
When your Phantom shuts down mid-flight with a sudden power loss, you lose connection.
Losing connection was a symptom and not related to the cause of the incident.

There's nothing suspicious about the battery, it was fine.
There was a minor difference in voltages between cells that showed a few times but at most, it was only 0.15 volts.
Your battery was quite healthy right through to the end of the flight.
The incident was probably due to an electronic failure.
Components can fail. That happens.

Thank you for the reply.

When it disconnected I was not alarmed, it is common. But always has reconnected shortly after, when there was no reconnection I went to the last place it was while there still would be battery and should have connected.
It is as if it was shot out the sky.

I’m regards to the battery, I honestly am not well versed enough to have an informed opinion on them.
I always presumed as I have three batteries, safely stored and rotated than none of them have had heavy use, there for I was never concerned

 

[Fly Dawg]

I’m regards to the battery, I honestly am not well versed enough to have an informed opinion on them.
I always presumed as I have three batteries, safely stored and rotated than none of them have had heavy use, there for I was never concerned

There really is not a method from the provided data, to offer any more suggestions than ones that have been mentioned. If we were to have the aircraft .dat file, that may provide a better indication. However, I will point out that many of us around here have determined and are mostly in agreement that the P4's have a serious flaw relating to the battery. From the far too many instances of P4's simply shutting down and falling out of the sky, a few of the .dat files have been recovered and analyzed. These instances point to either a battery latch failure or a connection point failure which obviously will shut down the aircraft. This is why most of us agree that this led to the latch change in the P4v2. There have been far too many instances of this battery disconnect issue to be coincidental. A few time's, but very few, power remained just long enough to transmit relevant telemetry data to show this issue. Unfortunately, yours is not one of those, so it cannot be determined from your device log. Just pointing that out for informational purposes.

 

[Reg55]

There really is not a method from the provided data, to offer any more suggestions than ones that have been mentioned. If we were to have the aircraft .dat file, that may provide a better indication. However, I will point out that many of us around here have determined and are mostly in agreement that the P4's have a serious flaw relating to the battery. From the far too many instances of P4's simply shutting down and falling out of the sky, a few of the .dat files have been recovered and analyzed. These instances point to either a battery latch failure or a connection point failure which obviously will shut down the aircraft. This is why most of us agree that this led to the latch change in the P4v2. There have been far too many instances of this battery disconnect issue to be coincidental. A few time's, but very few, power remained just long enough to transmit relevant telemetry data to show this issue. Unfortunately, yours is not one of those, so it cannot be determined from your device log. Just pointing that out for informational purposes.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

I did not know that about the battery issue and then correcting it on the V2.
I sent all the information off to DJI so it will be interesting to hear what they say.

I really am stuck between a rock and a hard place, as I enjoy the passion and energy people put into their hobby and this forum for example but with the price of these drones a user should be free to buy and fly without having to make adjustments or patch up faults.

I purchased the Mavic 2 pro when it came out to use for travel, but now I am very worried about flying it as I do not see what I could have done to save the phantom.
Yes there are extended warranties etc but I also grudge paying extra for something that is already expensive and should work in the first place

 

[Fly Dawg]

I did not know that about the battery issue and then correcting it on the V2.
I sent all the information off to DJI so it will be interesting to hear what they say.

Frustration understood. I was just relaying that for informational purposes from the data that I and many others have reviewed. It is possible that DJI may determine that this was a hardware issue, they will most likely not give great detail in their analysis. Sometimes they do, at times they do not. I would say you assuming this is a refresh or warranty claim that you would have a 50-50 shot. And as for the V2, it is really not a "fix" to the issue. They added a latch sensor, such that if the battery were not properly inserted, you could not take off. This to me says they knew something was afoot, so to speak.

 

[Oso]

far too many instances of P4's simply shutting down and falling out of the sky, a few of the .dat files have been recovered and analyzed. These instances point to either a battery latch failure or a connection point failure which obviously will shut down the aircraft.

+1

I also immediately thought battery from the initial description. We have seen it reported too many times here and elsewhere wrt the P4. So much that it should be on the short list of possible (probable?) root cause issues when we see posts like this one.

I also agree that DJI knows about the battery issue with the V1 which led to the design change with V2. Likely they would never admit there is an issue, but they may still replace AC's on a case by case basis with less proof available than normal.

 

[Reg55]

Would the battery issue be worth mentioning to DJI in a follow up?
They said 2-3 days for their engineers to look at the flight data, which means the drone is long gone but it may be worth probing deeper with them

 

[J4Berg]

Sorry for the loss. It’s jarring as I just lost mine a little over a week ago. I did find that my homeowners insurance would cover the cost of a replacement as long as the deductible was paid.

As far as what happened I’ll leave that to smarter members here but maybe someone can chime in on my theory. Is there a way a radio/cell tower in the area could interfere with signal and cause a disconnect? Hopefully the drone can be found. Did you have any identification on it or a way to contact you if found? Best of luck.

 

[Meta4]

As far as what happened I’ll leave that to smarter members here but maybe someone can chime in on my theory. Is there a way a radio/cell tower in the area could interfere with signal and cause a disconnect?

Unless the drone was flown very close to a cell tower, it's not going to cause any problem.
At worst, interference could block signal and perhaps cause a disconnect.
However that would only cause the Phantom to initiate RTH and come home.
The loss of signal in the OP's flight data is almost certainly because his Phantom completely lost power and fell to earth.