Phantom 3 Pro catastrophic failure

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Is there a way to tell whether one of the motors seized up in flight using the flight data (.txt) file?

Experienced a strange catastrophic failure on the second of 2 flights today. Saw "Weak RC signal" so hit the "Return to Home" button. But at that point could see the bottom of the P3pro on iphone screen which indicated the P3pro was probably going upside down or some other massive failure with Gimbal. This portion of video I saw was oddly not recorded on the recovered SD card. The video on the SD card just stops seconds before this catastrophe.

I retrieved the .txt file and using healthydrones.com website there seems to be nothing wrong with the compass, nothing wrong with the GPS, or anything else. I do see that the P3pro yawed and then the data shows it then headed almost straight down at 40MPH from ~200 ft (oddly there is no video of this when it headed straight down, the video stops right before this event).

No cracks near the propellers. Upon retrieving it we found that all propellers were destroyed from impact and the gimbal is missing. But I can be sure a propeller didn't fly off (unless maybe a piece of it did which caused the crash, but doubtful of that) The body is cracked from the impact. One of the landing legs is broken. It appears it crashed on the ground likely upside down and hard.

Any ideas of what may have happened?? Wind speed was moderate. We've had over 80 successful flights with this for over 2 months. All motors intact so it wasn't as if a motor sheared off. I inspected blades this morning nothing wrong. Its as if it just suddenly lost power. But the battery was 87% at time of crash and total flight time was only about 3:03. Again, the video ends 23 seconds before the actual crash (video oddly freezes/ends at 2:40, and crash happens about 3:03). I doubt it hit a bird or something, we would have had video. Nothing wrong with gimbal pre-flight.

Latest Firmware 1.4.00 was used (since day it was released).

Photo shows 1 of the 2 anti-drop pins failed. I am not sure if this was before or after crash. I assume after.

There was no CSC issued which would have caused the P3pro to shut off either.
 

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Why do I seem to be hearing so many reports for the video just before the crash not being there.
Is this possibly a buffer issue where the memory has not yet been written (or something?)...

or just a coincidence and bad luck?
 
The battery was attached correctly. But was found detached (and some damage to it) at crash site. The HD card had 12.6GB free space (64GB SD card).

Yes it is MOST STRANGE that the video just freezes, then there is no record of the next 23 seconds (catastrophic crash). Although I did see on my iPhone the bottom of the P3pro which to me means it made a very hard unnatural turn (then the video cut out, I didn't see the actual crash).
 
The gimbal also has only 1 or the 2 anti-drop pins intact after the crash. No sign of the gimbal or lens at the crash site. I'm wondering if one of the anti-drop pins failed on the gimbal and that somehow lead to the crash. Very strange.
 
I lost 23 seconds. Its as if something went haywire which caused the crash, and that moment that it went haywire was the same exact moment the video stopped recording on the HD drive.
 
OK here is a clue. When I pressed the "Return to Home" button on my P3pro remote, I got a "COMPASS_ERROR_LARGE" as shown in my .txt log file under "OSD.goHomeStatus" (I converted it to .csv to be able to read it). Thoughts?
 
Dji can extract a lot more information off of your phantom from the other sd card that is in it. I'm really sorry that happened. I hate hearing these stories. Hopefully eventually dji will be sending you a new one free of charge . Good luck!!
 
Thanks. I believe this was most likely a faulty IMU. I calibrated it but would often get "IMU error" upon startup. And it would take a long time to start up. It wasn't like that when I first got it almost 2 months ago. And calibrations didn't really seem to help. And I calibrated it away from metal etc etc. guess I'm in for the long 10 week RMA thing ...
 
I have read somewhere that there is a lag between video recording and being written to the sd card. Perhaps someone can confirm and shed light on the length of the lag, but I have understood that to be the reason you often don't see impact on crash videos (and when you do you generally see the video keep running on the ground).
 

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