P3P drops from sky into Mississippi flood, flood wins

[shockwave199]

Sorry about your loss. Take off battery 88%? When did you last charge the battery? Previous flight and when? What firmware were you on? Firmware 1.6 fixes battery problems. Regardless of all other things, it dropped from the sky, hinting at the battery bug previous to 1.6. Are you sure you didn't accidentally do sticks CSC and shut it down?

 

[Erroll]

A few things to answer here.

I did a normal calibration just prior to takeoff. It showed normal and ready to fly. I have calibrated and been denied in the past due to electromagnetic interference. It didn't happen this time.

Why did it take off in ATTI mode? Does loss of compass throw it to ATTI automatically? I don't even know how to intentionally put it into ATTI on the P3 while in flight. How would someone do that?

To those who are scared, I've had many many flights over water without incident. The P3P is a joy to fly. This crash unnerved me as I was literally doing nothing, flying slowly in an open rural area. But it will not stop me from owning one again. I'm addicted.

What do people think my chances are of getting a replacement from DJI given the flight log?

The compass "error" is probably as a result of the quad tumbling, rather than the cause of the tumble.
From HealthyDrones :"Found rate of change in the compass of 25 degrees or more per 0.1 seconds."

You claim to be a moderately experienced pilot, yet you don't know how to manually set the flight mode to ATTI??? This also means that you wouldn't know if you DID set it to ATTI yourself. In spite of this you are already looking for a free replacement?

DJI specifically advises against flying over water.

Good luck.

 

[With The Birds]

Atti is the center position on the left index finger switch on the rc but... It went into atti and you have never flown in atti before today? Unfortunately that may have caused the accident. When it went into atti at that height did you move the left stick forward and try to take it up? When it goes into atti on me, the first thing I do is gain altitude.

Good advice. Straight up is (or at least has been for me) usually your best move. Buys thinking time.

 

[ianwood]

I had mine go into ATTI the last flight. Could we be dealing with sun flares? Remember hearing about increased sun flares at the end of the year.

No.

The report shows the GPS satellite count as 15+. I can see the compass goes crazy at the end, ostensibly for no reason. Is there something in the controls I could have looked at before takeoff which would have told me that a 4 minute totally normal flight would suddenly go haywire?

Where does the compass go crazy? Healthy Drones has a habit of drawing conclusions where there are none. Be careful with what it says. What it is reporting as a crazy compass could be the drone tumbling out of the sky.

 

[TheRealNick]

Need to post he .txt file or better yet the .dat file from the crash

 

[avmason90]

I had mine go into ATTI the last flight. Could we be dealing with sun flares? Remember hearing about increased sun flares at the end of the year.

[QUOTE="ianwood, post: 625306, member: No.[/QUOTE]

This could in fact contribute to the loss of gps which would put your bird into atti. Solar activity is your biggest demon when flying gps. You should always check your kp index. This is the amount of electromagnetic interference in your area due to solar activity. It has a range of 0 to 9 lesser number equals lesser interference.

A lot of people fly in the evening during the golden hour for photography. This time of day is when electromagnetic interference is at is highest. Lots of apps available to show you this information before flying.

 

[With The Birds]

[QUOTE="ianwood, post: 625306, member: No.

This could in fact contribute to the loss of gps which would put your bird into atti. Solar activity is your biggest demon when flying gps. You should always check your kp index. This is the amount of electromagnetic interference in your area due to solar activity. It has a range of 0 to 9 lesser number equals lesser interference.

A lot of people fly in the evening during the golden hour for photography. This time of day is when electromagnetic interference is at is highest. Lots of apps available to show you this information before flying.[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]
Are mornings an issue also? I really hope not![/QUOTE]

 

[avmason90]

As far as I am aware it is only between 8pm and 12am when activity is at its highest

 

[happydays]

Get the .dat file from the aircraft (search how to do it) then upload it to flylog.info and ask someone nice like @BudWalker to interpret the data. That'll give you a definitive answer.

 

[With The Birds]

As far as I am aware it is only between 8pm and 12am when activity is at its highest

Good to know, thank you...

 

[With The Birds]

J

Get the .dat file from the aircraft (search how to do it) then upload it to flylog.info and ask someone nice like @BudWalker to interpret the data. That'll give you a definitive answer.

From the description of the event ut seems the craft went in the drink and was carried away down stream. I wonder if later software (assuming it is allowed for in the technical limitations of the lightbridge implementation) will see more detail logged in the controller. It seems quite often that the aircraft isnt recovered.

 

[avmason90]

Good to know, thank you...

There are places on this planet that have stronger interference then others. So my advice would be if flying somewhere new or away from home. Check the local kp index. Also your home location can have flares or spikes in activity at anytime. I always check before flight where I am it can go from 2 or 3 to between 7-9 in 24 hours.

 

[CenLA]

Just a SWAG, but we're you flying under or next to an all-steel bridge that could have affected the compass?

If I see it floating down past me in Natchez, I'll snag it for you with my butterfly net.

 

[ianwood]

This could in fact contribute to the loss of gps which would put your bird into atti. Solar activity is your biggest demon when flying gps. You should always check your kp index. This is the amount of electromagnetic interference in your area due to solar activity. It has a range of 0 to 9 lesser number equals lesser interference.

A lot of people fly in the evening during the golden hour for photography. This time of day is when electromagnetic interference is at is highest. Lots of apps available to show you this information before flying.

No. Solar events strong enough to cause any noticeable degradation of GPS precision do not cause drones to plummet from the sky. It also doesn't cause a loss of satellites. It degrades their precision through a process called scintillation and ionospheric disturbances. We've had maybe 3 solar events in the past year strong enough to be noticed in the polar regions. In Mississippi? Me thinks not. Solar events had nothing to do with it.

 

[phantom13flyer]

Kp index is a waste of time and energy to give it a second thought . It's all just hocus-pocus. So please do not waste your time worrying about it!!

 

[Keith Lampman]

.Watch out for this guy, coming soon to a town near you.......

 

[With The Birds]

.Watch out for this guy, coming soon to a town near you.......
View attachment 39849

Will be sure to keep my fail safe RTH altitude set appropriately.

 

[solsystem]

......but what happened?

Never a hint of a problem, and a great trouble free craft for 26 consecutive flights.

Normal successful calibration, normal startup, aircraft "safe to fly", GPS lock, takeoff, no significant weather to speak off. Flight was at about 20 ft off ground and moving forward across moving floodwaters of the Mississippi covering a roadway. About 4 minutes into flight, it drops from the sky directly into the water. Flight data states that one second before the drop, the craft went into ATTI mode and the controller said "ATTI mode". It was impossible to control and instantly crashed, carried off to New Orleans from St. Louis. No recovery possible.

There were some high tension power lines about 100 yards away but calibration was performed normally and I have flown within that distance of high tension power lines before without anything happening. I can understand if the lines were directly overhead or extremely close, but why would the craft just instantly enter ATTI mode and crash because of relatively distant ones?

I am attaching link to the flight log. I've been on Healthy Drones and can't see anything unusual, maybe more seasoned eyes can help on this forum. Based on this, I think I have a legitimate claim with DJI for a replacement. I am a moderately experienced pilot, not a novice and was flying slowly and normally. I feel this crash was not my fault.

Please note that the GPS shows a relatively dry area but at the time of this flood, the water was moving swiftly across this road and where it crashed was in about 3-5 feet of water.

HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

One of the other posters mentioned when is the last time you charged your battery? You mentioned starting off at 88%, which tells me the battery was not fully charged. Recently I took off with my battery somewhere between 50-75%, everything calibrated and within a few minutes it started descending without me being really able to stop it. As this was occurring my battery voltage was showing 3.42 volts per cell, even though the overall % was well over 30%. The batteries must be fully charged from my experience.

 

[rickray]

Atti is the center position on the left index finger switch on the rc but... It went into atti and you have never flown in atti before today? Unfortunately that may have caused the accident. When it went into atti at that height did you move the left stick forward and try to take it up? When it goes into atti on me, the first thing I do is gain altitude.

Except I did not have "multiflight" mode toggled on in the menu settings. Thus I was under the impression that I cannot enter ATTI mode with the index finger switch and that all three settings are defaulting to GPS. Perhaps I am wrong about this? However, I believe a mysterious loss of GPS forced me into ATTI mode. There was no time to pull up as the craft was only 20 feet over the flood water and instantly dove right into it. It seemed more of a malfunction than an wind cause loss of control. I think With The Birds may have it right by saying that without GPS and reliable compass data the phantom could have read the VPS data over the moving water to think it was moving and in the absence of control input from me throttled up to try and stop moving and tipped over?

 

[rickray]

Sorry about your loss. Take off battery 88%? When did you last charge the battery? Previous flight and when? What firmware were you on? Firmware 1.6 fixes battery problems. Regardless of all other things, it dropped from the sky, hinting at the battery bug previous to 1.6. Are you sure you didn't accidentally do sticks CSC and shut it down?

My battery had been sitting for about a week and charge was medium. I recharged the battery until charging lights went off and then used it within 30 minutes for the flight. I did not make a sticks error. In fact from the data you can see I was moving forward very slowly at the time of the total loss.