Phantom 4 Pro V2 Fell out of the sky...

[PhantomWetSuits]

I made this video showing how vulnerable the drone is when it comes to the battery . When they came out with the V2 , i thought the problem would be solved but the Phantom V2 shell was exactly the same except for that push down button they added . The end game is the Push down button did not solve the problem.

We solved this issue for our clients with the Phantom Rain Wet Suits to seal that battery tight.


Its just a waiting game for the next one to fall from the sky:

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

If the Drone in the video is a version 2.0, I highly doubt that battery disconnect was the issue. Battery disconnect was a major issue for the Phantom 4 and Phantom 4 Pro Series drones. That is why with the 2.0 DJI introduced a tab within the battery compartment that depresses when the battery is properly installed. If the battery is not properly installed a warning will be sent to the pilot and the Drone will not take off.

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

When I purchased my first v2.0 it came with ESC error out of the box. Instead of returning it, I sent it DJI and got a refurbished which had a scratched camera bottom. Was upset. Now I am scared to know there is a chance it will fall from the sky thanks to ESC...

Not to be a downer, but you should be scared. They will only replace with a new drone if a hardware malfunction occurs within 15 days. My version 2.0 fell out of the sky after 45 days due to ESC error. Unfortunately they could only send me a refurbished drone. I had the replacement drone for exactly 30 days when it too plummeted to the Earth from 108 feet this past weekend due to ESC failure. It makes me question whether I should fly drones for money anymore, because a few hundred dollars is not worth the risk of damaging property and people due to this dangerous object crashing with high probability. Perhaps this battery issue is also a problem, but my personal experience makes me automatically think ESC error when I hear of a version 2.0 falling out of the sky. Hopefully DJI will give up with the refurbished BS and send me a real new 1 but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

Couple things to note: Since its not your drone , we are not likely to see the DATA LOG !!

With that said: Many of us know this pilot from his youtubes videos and he is seasoned pilot with experience.

So what might have happened that would cause the drone to do that :

1. infamous battery disconnect
2. Its possible that he shut those motors off by accident as we cannot tell as he spun around but its possible.

Magnetic Interference most likely took place when he pointed the attenas at the car but that would not cause the drone to drop out of the sky like that.

So being that he is a good pilot : Saddly I have to go with battery disconnect.

This YouTuber posted a follow-up video clearly showing that he flew into power lines. It was definitively not a battery disconnect issue. Also, is there evidence to back up the claim that the battery tab introduced with the version 2.0 did not solve the problem?

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

This YouTuber posted a follow-up video clearly showing that he flew into power lines. It was definitively not a battery disconnect issue. Also, is there evidence to back up the claim that the battery tab introduced with the version 2.0 did not solve the problem?

Yeah I just chatted with him, its possible that the battery jarred loose upon impact of the wires which would explain some other things that went dead also.

In regards to the V2 solving the problem , it was a good tryt but a better attempt would have been adding two clips one on the TOP AND BOTTOM as the battery is still loose and wiggles some.

There are two parts , the loose battery caused from a shell that is a bit off on the right hand side of the battery on all phantoms and of course the button needing to be on both the top and bottom to make it more secure.

For the record I do not believe that any power lines were hit, just doest not add up for me.

The point of vertical take off was over the steeple on the building, the drone landed 10 ft past that.
The camera stopped recording in Mid Air this is a very telling tale of power loss.

Just look at these pictures , I do believe there were power lines but not anywhere near where he was, he was in the clouds when the drone fell.

Notice the Power lines and the Tree height and how far away it is from the steeple 300 ft. Notice the Trees ,

Now look at where it all goes down: Directly over the top of that steeple as he was getting ready for the top shot down of the steeple.

That black spec is the drone going above the steeple, very small speck

Notice the Fall is straight down less than 15 ft from the steeple , notice the type of trees where the power lines are and what is showing here .

So yeah no one is buying the power line , nor magnetic interference from them as they are just to far away and much lower.

Power shut off in mid air, no camera, no recording. This was the take off over the steeple and than straight up past 100 m and into the clouds.

The fall from the Heavens : Just missing the car in white below.

More evidence is leading to Pilot error by pushing both sticks down and killing the engines.
This would explain the Rash Excuse being made for Power Lines being the cause. UGH

There is a setting to turn that off.

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

I wonder if the guy who is making a parachute for Phantoms has released it yet. It would come in handy now that we are having Phantom Rains all over the world.

I wonder if the guy who is making a parachute for Phantoms has released it yet. It would come in handy now that we are having Phantom Rains all over the world.

The Parachute is interesting but the problem is that its sitting right ontop of the drone where it affecting the GPS signal.

You can test this by just placing your hand over the top of your drone and you will loose a few to many satellites

Until they come up with a fix, Its not viable yet but they may figure out a way to hijack the GPS.

 

[Andy9]

A parachute would be a big relief for Phantom pilots I think. At least for me. It prevents to hit somebody if falls down whatever the reason is and you have damage free bird (unless it falls into the water). But the GPS interference is a big obstacle for sure. If they will solve the problem, it could be a hit on the market.

 

[Nightwolf]

The creepy saying about what happens to me and the roofer I was working with, he just knew that I left the job site but didn't know why. He put his bird up and started filming the exact same house I was filming and his bird dropped out of the sky in roughly the exact same air space at the same altitude. It made me think that the homeowner has some sort of physics nerd contraption that it was testing out on us poor chumps. Realistically that is probably not the case. If somebody owns that kind of Technology could Market it properly and become widely successful.

question is: Did your new one fall in the same place as your first and your roofer Friend's fell

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

question is: Did your new one fall in the same place as your first and your roofer Friend's fell

This recent crash was in the same neighborhood but maybe 1/4 to 1/2 km from the first crash. If there were some kind of interference in the area, wouldn't I get some on-screen warnings? or at the very least there would be warnings in the DAT file, right? Also, I have a paid job in this neighborhood documenting work crews and their progress, so I have spent a lot of time there. Maybe three hours on site 3 different times. I am open to any hypotheses!! hope this additional information helps.

 

[JeffreyS]

Happened to me today with my 1 week old P4P Pro + v2.0. For no reason it went way way up to a few hundred feet when I pressed RTH, and then descended rapidly to a crash. Only my 4th flight, the first three were perfect.

 

[Fat Albert]

The Parachute is interesting but the problem is that its sitting right ontop of the drone where it affecting the GPS signal.

You can test this by just placing your hand over the top of your drone and you will loose a few to many satellites

Until they come up with a fix, Its not viable yet but they may figure out a way to hijack the GPS.

I guess your rain suit causes some signal drop also ?
I didn’t even want to apply FAA stickers on the top of the shell for this same reason ...

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

I guess your rain suit causes some signal drop also ?
I didn’t even want to apply FAA stickers on the top of the shell for this same reason ...

When I first created the WET SUIT we used a standard 4 mm heavy weight Closed Cell Neoprene and we noticed some GPS signal drop. We than had to have a custom sized made Closed Cell Neoprene made at 2mm for maximum performance.

2mm showed no effects and so we dialed it down to 1.5 mm for the Wet Suit and have been flying almost every other day over the Lake on average 2000 ft .

You should have no problem with the sticker on your drone.

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

Same two motors shut down again - right front and right rear - looks like ESC failure again:

View attachment 105907

You should definitely have a word with DJI about that.

SAR, I wonder if you can have a look again at this thread and weigh in with your expertise. Today I received the flight record analysis from DJI... they say that I flew into an obstruction and crashed to the ground...PILOT ERROR! at 108 feet in a neighborhood of 2-story homes and all underground utilities. Can you point to something in the flight record that puts holes in this garbage analysis?? Here is the exact message from DJI. Not very happy about this to say the least...any help is much appreciated.

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

For anyone just landing here for the first time, I had an ESC error crash in October (v2.0 was only 45 days old) where DJI admitted hardware was to blame and replaced with a refurb at no charge. Then on Dec 1st, only 30 days after receiving the refurb I suffered another catastrophic fall out of sky crash. Now DJI says I flew into obstruction at 108 feet. Here is a picture of the crash area. Nothing in this neighborhood extends higher than the street lights. I promise I will stop crying over spilled milk and carry on; hopefully this thread can help others decide on whether to purchase the v2.0 if they were on the fence.

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

SAR, I wonder if you can have a look again at this thread and weigh in with your expertise. Today I received the flight record analysis from DJI... they say that I flew into an obstruction and crashed to the ground...PILOT ERROR! at 108 feet in a neighborhood of 2-story homes and all underground utilities. Can you point to something in the flight record that puts holes in this garbage analysis?? Here is the exact message from DJI. Not very happy about this to say the least...any help is much appreciated.
View attachment 106213

So this is what I Pull up form the GPS location from DJI :
108 ft does not really make sense, so puzzling

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

Actually the flight "ended" at 20-something feet because it struck the roof of one of the homes which presumably rendered it totally dead after that. (Thankfully the reason I am there is to capture re-roof activitydue to hail damage on the entire community, so the homeowner is getting new shingles any day now.)Then bounced into the yard by the driveway. Add insult to injury, this also took a $169 battery with it. Come on DJI, just admit it!! Thanks for looking Wetsuit man!

 

[Dallas Drone Guy]

Perhaps a collition with a bird?

Anything is possible I suppose, but I saw no birds in the area that day, and no puff of feathers on the monitor. Also It does not explain that the two right motors shut down and did not resume spinning. If you hit a bird I would imagine that the props would still try to recover after impact (even if there is not enough altitude to do so). But hey, I am open to all ideas at this point. Trying to figure this out for me and also for the good of the community.

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

Anything is possible I suppose, but I saw no birds in the area that day, and no puff of feathers on the monitor. Also It does not explain that the two right motors shut down and did not resume spinning. If you hit a bird I would imagine that the props would still try to recover after impact (even if there is not enough altitude to do so). But hey, I am open to all ideas at this point. Trying to figure this out for me and also for the good of the community.

Can you post the video of the actual video taken form the flight that may help a lot . /

 

[sar104]

SAR, I wonder if you can have a look again at this thread and weigh in with your expertise. Today I received the flight record analysis from DJI... they say that I flew into an obstruction and crashed to the ground...PILOT ERROR! at 108 feet in a neighborhood of 2-story homes and all underground utilities. Can you point to something in the flight record that puts holes in this garbage analysis?? Here is the exact message from DJI. Not very happy about this to say the least...any help is much appreciated.
View attachment 106213

Their analysis is wrong. You were climbing and flying backwards but, as I posted previously, the two right hand motors simply shut down:

Looking at the pitch, roll and yaw we see the characteristic tumbling following propulsion loss, but no sign of an impact:

Finally - looking at the x, y and z acceleration data, there was no impact at all - simply a transition to the spinning, tumbling descent:

Note that the time discrepancy (DJI state the event at 487 seconds) is because they are measuring from the last takeoff rather than the original motor start in that DAT file:

It's disappointing that they would get it so badly wrong, but I'm sure that if you point out their error then they will take another look and figure it out correctly.

 

[Paul2660]

Not sure much will be gained with a lawyer, on a situation for a company with offices outside the US.

Type up a detailed letter/email with sar104's report and see if they will agree to re-evaluate the case. I am sure you have escalated up the chain, but one more try might help.

Sad to see this, and hope that DJI can change their response.

Paul C