Phantom 3 Professional Battery Failure when I was over 50% battery level

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So I took my new Phantom 3 Professional out to the beach this weekend to get some nice beach and water video footage. I had my battery fully charged and ready to go. When I got to my take off point I made sure and calibrated it and got the Safe to Fly With GPS, so I took off and flew it up and down the beach a few times, 10 minutes into my flight, I had looked and it said 51% battery so since I was flying over water I was being extra careful and wanted to get back before I got under 30% just to be safe, all of a sudden a red signal flashed across the screen "Critically low voltage, the aircraft will land now" I was still about 500 yards or so offshore and maybe a quarter mile down the beach heading back when it said this I immediately started to try to make it back, my FPV went out so I hit the return home button the controller started beeping as if it was working but no Phantom in sight, my stomach dropped and I waited and waited... no Phantom 3 professional returned... So I checked my flight log and it seemed that the battery went from over half charged to nothing in a matter of seconds and went into the water. Has anyone had this type of experience? You can see it went down seconds after the critical low voltage warning, I was being so careful to do EVERYTHING by the book as well. I emailed DJI, we will see what they do for me but I am still sick, I have only had this a few weeks and was feeling very confident about flying it safely. See my attached image of the last screenshot captured.
 
Sorry for your loss - that's rough. The only thing I can think of is a cell on the battery went bad suddenly... the good news is - if you still have all your telemetry data - you should be able to show DJI the flight path and the weirdness. I would hope they would replace in this situation.
 
Post the flight record from your flight log, all so the video which will be in your pilot app all so, and we will be able to help.
 
Wow....sorry to hear. That really sucks.....you may not have seen them...but there has been discussions about "breaking in" the battery to avoid errors like you recieved.....
The added bad news is that dji apparently does not approve of flying over water...so this may be a determining factor to what action they take....wish you the best......btw were you able to locate the p3 ?
 
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We have also seen this when the battery was not properly seated in the battery bay and the vibrations from the flight caused the terminals to slowly disconnect, thus the voltage error and crash. It's happened now on the P3 and certainly on the previous iterations. Seems more likely than a brand new battery fault.
 
Ugh... Made me sick to read this...I had this happen two weeks ago over a lake too.. I have 6 batteries and charged all prior for the day run, on the last battery as always tested to make sure it shows full. Took off started to fly over a cliff and over water... 6 minutes later, low voltage alarm so immediately started to head back to me, but saw it was going down and not up the cliff so made it do a dash run to get close to cliff. Saw it tumble down heard it hit some rocks.. After looking and looking saw it about 50 ft below me in about 2 feet of water totally submerged.. Finally flagged down a boater who picked it up and met him at a dock to get it back.. Hasn't started back up yet. Makes the sound, but nothing yet. Had insurance on the device so they sent me a check to buy a new one, which I got today, but now after reading this, it makes me very nervous about flying over water or too far away again, as the company I bought the insurance from, says they no longer will insure Drone flying cameras :(
 
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Wow....sorry to hear. That really sucks.....you may not have seen them...but there has been discussions about "breaking in" the battery to avoid errors like you recieved.....
The added bad news is that dji apparently does not approve of flying over water...so this may be a determining factor to what action they take....wish you the best......btw were you able to locate the p3 ?
That really stinks, they sure do use a lot of water shots in there marketing, I went to where it was last on my map but the water was about 20 foot and the tide was ripping so I did not see it anywhere, I even got in the water with a mask and free dove and BTW it is tarpon season here on the gulf coast meaning tarpon = large sharks, needless to say I really wanted to find it, I will post the video.
 
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Ugh... Made me sick to read this...I had this happen two weeks ago over a lake too.. I have 6 batteries and charged all prior for the day run, on the last battery as always tested to make sure it shows full. Took off started to fly over a cliff and over water... 6 minutes later, low voltage alarm so immediately started to head back to me, but saw it was going down and not up the cliff so made it do a dash run to get close to cliff. Saw it tumble down heard it hit some rocks.. After looking and looking saw it about 50 ft below me in about 2 feet of water totally submerged.. Finally flagged down a boater who picked it up and met him at a dock to get it back.. Hasn't started back up yet. Makes the sound, but nothing yet. Had insurance on the device so they sent me a check to buy a new one, which I got today, but now after reading this, it makes me very nervous about flying over water or too far away again, as the company I bought the insurance from, says they no longer will insure Drone flying cameras :(
Sorry to hear that, I am glad you got it back though and were able to get your money back !
 
A friend of mine lost his at sea. He works on an offshore platform. Thankfully they had an underwater robot! Took them about an hour to find it since they knew the depth and current of the water.
109 meters deep!
It didn't work when they brought it up but the SD Card was still good.
11166090_814975071924611_95375198_n.jpg
 
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hmm, me no fly over water anymore, did it once, couple minutes in I chickened out and flew back to the bank. sorry to hear about the lost Phantom. I probably would not have tried to go in after it either, not in 20ft of water at the beach.
 
Ugh... Made me sick to read this...I had this happen two weeks ago over a lake too.. I have 6 batteries and charged all prior for the day run, on the last battery as always tested to make sure it shows full. Took off started to fly over a cliff and over water... 6 minutes later, low voltage alarm so immediately started to head back to me, but saw it was going down and not up the cliff so made it do a dash run to get close to cliff. Saw it tumble down heard it hit some rocks.. After looking and looking saw it about 50 ft below me in about 2 feet of water totally submerged.. Finally flagged down a boater who picked it up and met him at a dock to get it back.. Hasn't started back up yet. Makes the sound, but nothing yet. Had insurance on the device so they sent me a check to buy a new one, which I got today, but now after reading this, it makes me very nervous about flying over water or too far away again, as the company I bought the insurance from, says they no longer will insure Drone flying cameras :(
Who did you have insurance with?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
This is so disturbing to hear. I'm sorry this happened to you guys. Flying over water is part of what I want to do. I guess I'll put some time in before risking it.

I've been wondering if my homeowners insurance would cover the drone if it gets wrecked or goes missing.

Mark.
 
Ugh, this sucks... Sorry man.

Mine comes in tomorrow, guess I'll stick close to the Lithium break-in procedure, hopefully we can can learn from your crappy situation...
:(
 
I think these batteries are too 'clever' for their own good. They are certainly over-engineered.

I too felt sick reading the OP's account. Unfortunately that's the risk one takes when flying over liquid terrain. If it goes down, odds are that it will be a total loss. A friend of mine is expecting his P3 Advanced to arrive in the next few days & plans on doing a lot of flying over water. I'll show him this thread....
 
For me flying over the water is practically the reason I got the P3. I'm planning to put in some land time to build trust and then throw caution to the wind.

Mark.
 
Sorry for your loss. Have you tried to contact the company yet? You might have had a lemon battery :(
 
wow I just spent the weekend getting some brilliant shots over a bay in sydney australia pittwater
flew 2km across bay and back again close to home it got a low battery message and did what it was suppose to do and landed back at home in the back yard after a bit of extra mucking around when i knew it was back

but these stories make you nervous are there any other stories like this lets hope they remain a small few
 

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