Phantom 3pro lost motor mid flight.....total loss

[AIRNUTS]

I been flying my phantom 3 pro since November of last year, 35 hours total tiime, 210 flights and over 400 km total distance, with not one issue..ever ..no crashes no close calls, nothing.
This morning I went out to the beach with my wife and kids. Went up, out to the ocean to do a video of a sailboat just cruising, on the way back got really close to the water, right on top of the kids with the camera looking down, went straight up and at about 150 feet, I stopped recording and gained more altitude, to about 300 feet i started to decend, i was looking at the screen since the drone was over my head, all of the sudden the view was rotating very fast and going from sky to ocean, immediately I went to att to regain control, got a couple of error messages and shortly after the drone came down in to the beach really hard, one of the engines was missing, we looked for it and founded about 60 yards from were the phantom 3pro hit the sand, total lose. It was definitly a separation of one of the motors from the phantom, thank god nobody was hurt but this is very very scary to have something like this happen, This morning I did a very meticulous check of the phantom, look for craks, loose bolts, etc all seem to be ok and this happens. I'm contacting DJI service to file a warranty claim for a catastrophic structure faliure.

I need advice on how to contact DJI about this, thanks

 

[Trackman1]

Was there part of the shell attached to the motor? Or just motor and some wire?

 

[flyNfrank]

Wow!

 

[mikesmiley]

Yikes!

 

[AIRNUTS]

Check the pics you can clearly see the motor with the piece of shelf attached to it, im very upset over this, no so much for the lost of the bird but just to think of the consecuences if this thing hits someone on the way down, it came so fast and hard i was about 50 yards from wher it hit the beach, scary very very scary and nothing i could do to prevent this, a complete desing failure.

 

[JamesG2571]

That's crazy... :/ hopefully DJI will sort it out ... That's something I've never seen before! Glad no one was hurt!

Keep us updated on your warranty claim!


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[BDOG]

Sorry for the loss and the pucker factor it must have induced. DJI HAS to cover this type of catastrophic failure!

I would like to send you a set of the Arm Reinforcements that I make. Once you get the bird warrantied please let me know and I will send you a set to keep you, your family, other people and property safe.

That's how I roll.

Here is a picture in white on my bird. I also can print in a variety of other colors if you desire.

With these mounted your motors aren't going anywhere!

 

[flyNfrank]

Wow!

Can you show better images of the area in the arm where the motor broke away from?

As of this moment I can't think of anything that the A/C itself could do for this to happen. And regardless if the plastic is brittle for whatever reason, the only thing that could do this is if maybe something was placed on top of the propshaft center and cracked and weakened the area prior to flight.

Also speculating, say if the A/C was stored in a case right after a flight and the motor had not cooled down ahead of time. Plus heat rising from other parts and up through that point.

 

[Gary M]

Just call Dji tech support and tell them what happened. If you have had it since November it's still under 1 yr warranty. They'll have you send it in, probably check your flight records. When they see it's a total waste & how it happened, most likely they'll send you a new one.

 

[BDOG]

Can you show better images of the area in the arm where the motor broke away from?

As of this moment I can't think of anything that the A/C itself could do for this to happen. And regardless if the plastic is brittle for whatever reason, the only thing that could do this is if maybe something was placed on top of the propshaft center and cracked and weakened the area prior to flight.

Also speculating, say if the A/C was stored in a case right after a flight and the motor had not cooled down ahead of time. Plus heat rising from other parts and up through that point.

Thats an interesting potential issue. I see what you mean. Downward pressure from a case pressing on the motor shaft or propellers while the motor is still hot could make the plastic in the area underneath more brittle as it heats and cools time after time. Had never even considered that. Glad I have my arm reinforcements! They will serve as a heatsink as well and dissipate heat that is headed down to that area.

 

[AIRNUTS]

Can you show better images of the area in the arm where the motor broke away from?

As of this moment I can't think of anything that the A/C itself could do for this to happen. And regardless if the plastic is brittle for whatever reason, the only thing that could do this is if maybe something was placed on top of the propshaft center and cracked and weakened the area prior to flight.

Also speculating, say if the A/C was stored in a case right after a flight and the motor had not cooled down ahead of time. Plus heat rising from other parts and up through that point.

I done the same procedure plenty of times, same back pack, same accesories, nothing was different this morning, this was just a complete failure of the shell structure, nothing more, poor design
Nothing was placed on top of the motors prior to this flight and I did a very detail preflight this morning, one of those days were you get up early and I didnt have anything to do so I decided to check and clean my phantom 3 pro, checked for cravks, none found, checked for loose bolts, none found and so on....all good until the flight

 

[AIRNUTS]

 

[BDOG]

These images are scary!

 

[AIRNUTS]

Sorry for the loss and the pucker factor it must have induced. DJI HAS to cover this type of catastrophic failure!

I would like to send you a set of the Arm Reinforcements that I make. Once you get the bird warrantied please let me know and I will send you a set to keep you, your family, other people and property safe.

That's how I roll.

Here is a picture in white on my bird. I also can print in a variety of other colors if you desire.

With these mounted your motors aren't going anywhere!

Thank you so mucho for your offer, but it shouldn't be like that, why do we have to go and add some after market part to prevent an engine separation,??? this should never happen , period. I can't explain the feeling when that phantom 3 pro hit the ground, is so fast and loud, im very glad that no one was hurt, thats all I care about, safety of other and to know that this was completely out of my control

 

[BDOG]

Unfortunately thats what we HAVE TO do. The arms are a point of failure over time. If this was not the case then we would not have numerous topics that concern this very issue.

Seat belts save lives. Arm Reinforcement save drone motors and arms.

Not trying to minimise the fact that the arms and shell for that matter should be robust enough to handle a lifetime of trouble free oepration.

The arm reinforcements are a gift . No cost to you. I want the new Phantom to be protected.

You know where to find me.

 

[MikeyOnline]

Wow! You can see where the motor was still running once it broke free from the arm and the torque actually twisted the wires off. Makes me want to do the Plast-Aid reinforcement on mine. Also reiterates why I never fly over people.

Mike

 

[nix240z]

this is know problem with the shells cracking. This is why I went ahead and reinforced all my arms with plast-aid.
removed shell , motors and filled with plast-aid.

http://www.amazon.com/Plast-aid-80400-Plastic-Repair-6-Ounce/dp/B004DFHSM6

 

[Zzyzx]

FWIW, I notice your shell is the old-style shell without the X braces. I'm not suggesting any conclusion from that, but just an interesting data point.

The breakage pattern is as if the force of the motor just pulled it out of the shell. Perhaps the shell was weakened or brittle for some reason. What were the winds like? Maybe a wind gust put some excessive stress on the motor mounting. Not sure the newer X braces would have strengthened the shell enough to withstand whatever happened, but worth pointing out to DJI that you have the old-style shell.

The new version shells look like this under the motors (there seem to be at least one or two intermediate versions out there as well with other X brace patterns). As I'm reassembling mine, I'm also going to fill around the braces with Plast-aid. And perhaps install the external reinforcements as well (every time I convince myself doing both is overkill I see something like this).

 

[AIRNUTS]

Than

Unfortunately thats what we HAVE TO do. The arms are a point of failure over time. If this was not the case then we would not have numerous topics that concern this very issue.

Seat belts save lives. Arm Reinforcement save drone motors and arms.

Not trying to minimise the fact that the arms and shell for that matter should be robust enough to handle a lifetime of trouble free oepration.

The arm reinforcements are a gift . No cost to you. I want the new Phantom to be protected.

You know where to find me.

I thank you you so much for your offer and I will make sure to install the reinforcement arms for the SAFETY OF OTHERS since DJI can not asure that the motors wont just fly away.....but my point is this, buy a new telsa 3 but go ahead and get the aftermarket bracket for the wheels, they may come offf and kill you or someone else, can you imagine that ????there preorders would be 0 instead off 400000 and still going.

 

[nix240z]

new style shell with a crack, never crashed and always checked for cracks after each flight. Once this one showed up, I did the plast-aid fill of the arms. The arms are rock solid now with zero flex.