Phantom 4 disappeared today

[Meta4]

I tried using follow me mode and return to home mode on a non cellular iPad and the functions would not work. So I used my wife's iPad that has cellular capability and they worked

Follow-me needs to have a GPS enabled tablet to follow but RTH does not.
Your Phantom has a very good GPS receiver of its own that it uses for all flight functions including recording the home point for RTH.

 

[Meta4]

My first thought is the metal train may have caused disturbance of one ever passed through? I know when I try launching at a baseball field it won't launch since the metal fences are all over. Had to move. Hope you find it.

The train two way radio system may have caused interference...possible?

Lots of guesses that aren't relevant.
Even close to a metal train or train radio, your Phantom doesn't fall from the sky.
At 400 feet there was no effect from these.

I found it exactly where the flight record made its last entry. Now the work of where and how to repair.

The flight record doesn't really give any clues.
It just stops with the Phantom appearing quite healthy and normal and the abttery at 70%.

The best chance of finding out what really happened is hidden on the internal SD card that would have kept recording after the connection was lost.

 

[John Locke]

The train was still a couple miles off. That's why I was hovering. I've done this before with excellent results.

I shoot trains all the time, and I often get within 50' of them, never had a problem. I don't dare get closer due to magnetic fields from the massive electric motors.

 

[Neon Euc]

I may be wrong but I assume that is the home point - look at the other end of the flight?

Wow my mistake. Sorry wrote that at 3.30am half asleep [emoji13] I better not give any advice untill I'm fully awake lol

Neon Euc

 

[F3honda4me]

Can you get the DAT file and upload it to Dropbox then post the link here? We can use that to find out what happened according to the drone.

How to retrieve a .DAT

If you can get the DAT following the instructions I posted, we could tell you what happened.

 

[Ranch5]

Got the P4 cleaned up yesterday. Inserted the battery and powered the P4 up. It connected to the controller with no problem. All motors responded normally. The yaw arm was broke and the ribbon cable were all torn off so of course there was no picture. Looks like a new shell, yaw arm, and ribbon cable for the camera will put the P4 back into operation. Oh yeah, all the props are toast too but I have plenty of those.

I pulled the SD chip and viewed it to see if I could determine exactly what happened but the video was not view-able as an error message said it was an incorrect format. So when it lost power the file was corrupted.

The only thing I can imagine happening was that the P4 lost power which means somehow the battery became disconnected. I checked the battery immediately after finding the P4 and it was still at 3 bars. I put the battery on the charger and it accepted a full charge. So I'm thinking that although I'm certain the battery was fully seated prior to the flight it somehow disconnected.

I will post a full report with pics as soon as possible.

 

[John Locke]

If you have a friend with a P4, put that corrupt SD card in it, power up the craft, shoot a short video. That routine can put the right ending in the video you were shooting previously when you crashed so it can be viewed. That happened to me once when I crashed from a bird encounter.

 

[frankd32]

Ive had my drone disconnect for me at over 8000 feet and once at over 9000 people. After about 30 seconds (Felt like five minutes) I could see on the screen that it was making its way back. Maybe I'm a little risky with mine but it always seems to come back!


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[F3honda4me]

Got the P4 cleaned up yesterday. Inserted the battery and powered the P4 up. It connected to the controller with no problem. All motors responded normally. The yaw arm was broke and the ribbon cable were all torn off so of course there was no picture. Looks like a new shell, yaw arm, and ribbon cable for the camera will put the P4 back into operation. Oh yeah, all the props are toast too but I have plenty of those.

I pulled the SD chip and viewed it to see if I could determine exactly what happened but the video was not view-able as an error message said it was an incorrect format. So when it lost power the file was corrupted.

The only thing I can imagine happening was that the P4 lost power which means somehow the battery became disconnected. I checked the battery immediately after finding the P4 and it was still at 3 bars. I put the battery on the charger and it accepted a full charge. So I'm thinking that although I'm certain the battery was fully seated prior to the flight it somehow disconnected.

I will post a full report with pics as soon as possible.

If you upload the DAT as I have requested twice, we can see detailed logs and probably determine the cause.

 

[ShivarenoP3]

So I checked healthy drones and the last two warnings are a bit of a worry. As for the last warning it's something I never seen before. Hopefully @msinger may be able to share some light on this View attachment 74677

Neon Euc

Those new "unpaved" airport messages have been making me think they are or close to the root of the "problem."

 

[Ranch5]

If you upload the DAT as I have requested twice, we can see detailed logs and probably determine the cause.

I'm going to do that tomorrow some time. Sorry for the delay but llamas, dogs, and wives first.

 

[Ranch5]

Those new "unpaved" airport messages have been making me think they are or close to the root of the "problem."

I get that message all the time. Seeing as how there is much farm activity around here there are crop dusting "air strips" all over the place. It's never been a problem before.

 

[F3honda4me]

I get that message all the time. Seeing as how there is much farm activity around here there are crop dusting "air strips" all over the place. It's never been a problem before.

Yea the unpaved airport has no impact on anything. I live near one too.

 

[Ranch5]

If you upload the DAT as I have requested twice, we can see detailed logs and probably determine the cause.

Here's the DAT file

 

[F3honda4me]

Here's the DAT file

I can tell that's not the right file. The DAT would be from the specific day and time that the incident occurred. And it would be probably 100+ MB in size. This DAT is only 1MB.

 

[JCP10]

So I was a bit over six minutes into my second flight of the afternoon. I had my P4 hovering over a spot where I could get a shot of a passing train. Suddenly my screen goes blank and "Aircraft Disconnected" message appears on my iPad! What the heck????? I immediately hit the RTH button but to no avail. I went searching for it but it was getting dark and the last contact I had with it was over a private orchard so I'll go searching again in the morning with permission of the land owner for certain.

Talk about a sinking sick feeling!!! If I am able to find it I'm dreading the condition it'll be in and if not found I'm really dreading replacing it. Ugh!!

Has anyone else had the experience of the P4 just disconnecting in mid flight? If so any ideas of what may cause it? By the way, before the flight I am certain that the battery was properly mounted in the aircraft.

I was ALSO over a passing freight train (about 1500 feet out, using Skyreat Antenna boosters), and the same thing happened to me, except I got "signal lost". (I am using Litchi, and use the "verbal reporting"). At one point it said "Battery level 0" (should have been 60%). I was at 140 feet or so--so I felt like I had line of sight. ((I flew the rest of missions higher, and had no more problems)).

I took my fingers off the controls, waited a few seconds, and the train passed. ( I was flying FPV, so I could see where the bird was). The video feed cleared of the pixelation, and I was slowly edging the aircraft (doing a little pivot) in a circle to "reconnect" the antennas, if possible. The signal came back, but it was the second time it had happened over this particular field (I was over a sod farm, near a train track). All I could figure out was maybe the train had wifi or a signal generator on board and it overrode the P4 wifi. (just a guess). Looking at the SD card of the video, the aircraft didn't do anything different. Maybe the train uses a 2.4Ghz signal to communicate with the signal boxes as it goes past.... etc. (Like emergency vehicles can change the traffic lights).

I read a post where you should check to see if your RC controller goes "red" or stays "green" -- excellent advice. If green, you are ok. I was concerned enough about all my recent "disconnects" to take the aircraft up today, and just run it out hard 200 feet in all modes and see what I got. Nothing happened, but I didn't go far. I'll try a little farther next time. Weather and temps have not been cooperating to do as much as I would like.

I think I won't be flying much directly over train tracks--it would kill me to have a train hit it if I lost signal and the P4 ended up on the tracks.

Again, your aircraft may have just landed itself quietly (keeping fingers crossed that you find it).

 

[JCP10]

Gosh, I just bought a P4 and all I read are negative things. Should have gotten a P3P until I can get an Inspire.
Terry

I really love my p4, but I don't think it's a cakewalk. Using FPV, I am hooked up to a bunch of cables, etc. But the video....... even in my neighborhood--I never get tired of watching it.

 

[ShivarenoP3]

Yea the unpaved airport has no impact on anything. I live near one too.

I did fail to mention one thing.

Those messages seem to bug out my system, ONLY when homepoint/take-off in class G, then fly into a "warning zone" when taking videos/pictures toggling back and forth.

Something happens during data capture. If I am simply flying/viewing only, no crash (black screen) of the app.

Mostly this happens with my P3S. Maybe something lags too much over WiFi and the app just goes to bed.

 

[Phill2]

I was ALSO over a passing freight train (about 1500 feet out, using Skyreat Antenna boosters), and the same thing happened to me, except I got "signal lost". (I am using Litchi, and use the "verbal reporting"). At one point it said "Battery level 0" (should have been 60%). I was at 140 feet or so--so I felt like I had line of sight. ((I flew the rest of missions higher, and had no more problems)).

I took my fingers off the controls, waited a few seconds, and the train passed. ( I was flying FPV, so I could see where the bird was). The video feed cleared of the pixelation, and I was slowly edging the aircraft (doing a little pivot) in a circle to "reconnect" the antennas, if possible. The signal came back, but it was the second time it had happened over this particular field (I was over a sod farm, near a train track). All I could figure out was maybe the train had wifi or a signal generator on board and it overrode the P4 wifi. (just a guess). Looking at the SD card of the video, the aircraft didn't do anything different. Maybe the train uses a 2.4Ghz signal to communicate with the signal boxes as it goes past.... etc. (Like emergency vehicles can change the traffic lights).

I read a post where you should check to see if your RC controller goes "red" or stays "green" -- excellent advice. If green, you are ok. I was concerned enough about all my recent "disconnects" to take the aircraft up today, and just run it out hard 200 feet in all modes and see what I got. Nothing happened, but I didn't go far. I'll try a little farther next time. Weather and temps have not been cooperating to do as much as I would like.

I think I won't be flying much directly over train tracks--it would kill me to have a train hit it if I lost signal and the P4 ended up on the tracks.

Again, your aircraft may have just landed itself quietly (keeping fingers crossed that you find it).

I get lost signal flying at 400' above power lines about 2 ks away.
I didn't expect interference at that height.

 

[Ranch5]

I was ALSO over a passing freight train (about 1500 feet out, using Skyreat Antenna boosters), and the same thing happened to me, except I got "signal lost". (I am using Litchi, and use the "verbal reporting"). At one point it said "Battery level 0" (should have been 60%). I was at 140 feet or so--so I felt like I had line of sight. ((I flew the rest of missions higher, and had no more problems)).

I took my fingers off the controls, waited a few seconds, and the train passed. ( I was flying FPV, so I could see where the bird was). The video feed cleared of the pixelation, and I was slowly edging the aircraft (doing a little pivot) in a circle to "reconnect" the antennas, if possible. The signal came back, but it was the second time it had happened over this particular field (I was over a sod farm, near a train track). All I could figure out was maybe the train had wifi or a signal generator on board and it overrode the P4 wifi. (just a guess). Looking at the SD card of the video, the aircraft didn't do anything different. Maybe the train uses a 2.4Ghz signal to communicate with the signal boxes as it goes past.... etc. (Like emergency vehicles can change the traffic lights).

I read a post where you should check to see if your RC controller goes "red" or stays "green" -- excellent advice. If green, you are ok. I was concerned enough about all my recent "disconnects" to take the aircraft up today, and just run it out hard 200 feet in all modes and see what I got. Nothing happened, but I didn't go far. I'll try a little farther next time. Weather and temps have not been cooperating to do as much as I would like.

I think I won't be flying much directly over train tracks--it would kill me to have a train hit it if I lost signal and the P4 ended up on the tracks.

Again, your aircraft may have just landed itself quietly (keeping fingers crossed that you find it).

If you'll look a page back you'll see I found it but it didn't land well.