My P4P dropped out of the sky

[Pipeliner_USA]

Looking for some help, have been flying regularly since the beginning of this year and have never even had a close call before.

Was getting some shots of the lake when I was up at my cabin. Minimal winds, plenty of battery life, well within range, GPS mode, home point location set, etc. Out of nowhere the thing went into an uncontrollable spin as it fell 200 feet to the bottom of a lake. At the last second, the app told me max motor speed reached even though I was not accelerating or moving very fast. I was able to get it back, and all 4 props were still attached although obviously broken. Battery pack was in tact as well. Is a bird possible? Going to try and dry out the SD card and get the video. My DJI GO app didn't save the video, it said cache full or something.


DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

 

[LSDMT]

all i know is 3 things:

- there are two kinds of helicopter pilots: those who’ve crashed and those who will.

- Murphy is a bastard and he’s *always* flying with you.

- according to your flight logs and weather data - it wasn’t anything you did. textbook flight.

i most sincerely feel bad for you man. i feel like this forum is full of people who’ve experienced similar fates through no fault of their own. the more complex a system is - the more that can go wrong with it.

now i gotta go fly and hope i’m not the next statistic [emoji52]

 

[thedjtec]

I'm not a log expert by any means, but I did look through and found a noticeable issue:
14m 41.4s P-GPS 15satellites 198.8ft 0ft 11.9mph 861.2ft 41% 14.772V 3.693V 3.695V 3.714V 3.67V 0.044V
At that mark, the cell voltage variance (As bolded) is significantly higher than the rest of that flight - at the same time your altitude starts to decrease. Your battery life is also at 41%.
Mean anything? Maybe. How old is the battery?

 

[Pipeliner_USA]

I'm not a log expert by any means, but I did look through and found a noticeable issue:
14m 41.4s P-GPS 15satellites 198.8ft 0ft 11.9mph 861.2ft 41% 14.772V 3.693V 3.695V 3.714V 3.67V 0.044V
At that mark, the cell voltage variance (As bolded) is significantly higher than the rest of that flight - at the same time your altitude starts to decrease. Your battery life is also at 41%.
Mean anything? Maybe. How old is the battery?

I noticed that too of course--in the last 1-2 seconds of it's life a number of things went berserk, from the battery to the satellites to the gimbal.

The battery was a DJI manufactured battery specifically for the P4P, brand new and unopened when I received it 3 or 4 months ago. I have always kept an eye on the battery information that HealthyDrones gives me, and there has never been anything out of the ordinary.

The drone has a large crack on one it's four prop arms and on the other side of that crack, the plastic is separating at the crease. The camera looks okay and the battery looks okay also. The props are not bad either, two are in tact and two are 1/2 broken.

So, what do I do next? What is the best practice for trying to get this situated? I bought it on Amazon from a vendor that had a clean, high review record. Do I go through them or through DJI?

 

[Meta4]

I noticed that too of course--in the last 1-2 seconds of it's life a number of things went berserk, from the battery to the satellites to the gimbal.
So, what do I do next? What is the best practice for trying to get this situated? I bought it on Amazon from a vendor that had a clean, high review record. Do I go through them or through DJI?

The most common cause of fall-from-the-sky incidents is flying with a partially discharged battery.
Your flight record shows no red flag battery issues and the battery appears healthy at the end of the flight record.
From 14:39.8 your flight record shows the Phantom tumbling which makes it hard to keep GPS sats locked etc.
It appears to have been a hardware issue and you've got the Phantom if they want to see the detailed internal flight data recorder.
The thing to do is to upload this flight record to DJI by clicking on the cloud icon on the Flight Records page in the app.
Then go here: DJI Support - Here for You and follow the links to start an online chat with DJI and tell them the story and they'll take it from there.

 

[cl998]

There have been several reports of P4's dropping out of the sky. Mine was one of them and DJI repaired it under warranty.. It cost me almost a month of down time and a few thousand $$ in damage to the car it hit when it fell.