HELP! P3 Professional went out of control and crashed.

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

Hello,

Let me start by saying I've been a lurker on this site since I purchased my P3 and really enjoy the insightful information from all of you, thank you!

Now to the message I never wanted to type.

Basically I was flying my P3P in a P-GPS mode and had been flying it prior to the flight and had no issues. Shortly after take-off on this flight it basically had a mind of its own. The motors were revving at such a high tone I've never heard before and don't feel I could make them rev this high if I wanted to. It flew away from me and was going as fast as possible (on the logs I see speeds of 51 mph.) It was non responsive to any movements on the remote. I couldn't bring it back but I was able to eventually get it to turn away from where it was headed. It was flying in a massive circle and the battery burnt down in a matter of seconds and it put itself RTH but wasn't RTH-ing. As it was flying in a circle the P3 would spin itself. It was bizarre. The drone eventually moved into whatever the mode is called when it force lands and began dropping elevation as it continued to fly uncontrollably. Unfortunately the drone flew itself into a large dead tree overhanging the Colorado River and was never seen again.

I'll post logs and hopefully do it right. Please inform me of anything you guys see that may have caused this.

HealthyDrones.com - Innovative flight data analysis that matters

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

If I need to post something different, please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

msinger · Jun 19, 2016

Did you calibrate your compass prior to flying?

BTW, I'm surprised you managed to fly as far as you did. Your battery was nearly depleted before you took off.

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

I did not. The intention wasn't an extended flight, more less trying to get my battery level a little lower prior to charging

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msinger · Jun 19, 2016

Were there any large metallic objects around? It appears you took off from the roof of some type of large structure.

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

I was on a hillside with a patio. There was nothing completely out of the ordinary. I was near a restaurant which I'm sure they have large refrigerators. But I nothing abnormally large or out of the ordinary.

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henick · Jun 19, 2016

Looks like it had a bunch of warnings that the satellite positioning didn't match the compass. You probably should have landed and recalibrated immediately.

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

It happened too fast to do anything of that nature. It went airborne, hovered for a min then took off and wouldn't respond to anything I did.

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henick · Jun 19, 2016

Too bad it's gone. I bet the dat files are interesting. Not sure where that leaves you though. Sorry for your loss man. Any chance of recovery?

Even killing the engines maybhave been a better route at that rate...

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

What are dat files? I don't think there's and chance. I searched and searched and have since left the location. I guess where I'm at is wondering the DJI will do anything for me or if I'm at some total fault for the situation.

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henick · Jun 19, 2016

They don't often replace without the bird because the dat files have much more information than the phone ones. Especially in a situation like this. That said, definitely kick off a ticket with them they'll usually give you 20% off even if it was your fault.

If they find it was hardware failure they may warranty but it's pretty hard to do sans hardware.

Edit: sorry dat files are a more detailed log of your flights stored on the bird itself. Like a flight recorder.

Meta4 · Jun 19, 2016

sethtinsley said:
I was on a hillside with a patio. There was nothing completely out of the ordinary.

Taking off from a large reinforced concrete slab is not "ordinary"
It hovered for 46 seconds at 10 feet or less with a constant compass error warning.
But nothing was done to stop the flight?

Wibble · Jun 19, 2016

Did you try to switch into ATTI mode to try to get control back?

Northern Observer · Jun 19, 2016

Did the start of your flight resemble this one of mine? I had a full battery though, and the bail out move was to gun it up, to avoid the trees as the only control I had was the throttle. My compass was hooped due my poor take off site (total dumb ***, not thinking that day). The classic toilet bowl circle yours made certainly points to compass issues.

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msinger · Jun 19, 2016

sethtinsley said:
I was on a hillside with a patio.

Is the patio made of concrete? If so, it's full of metal. That will surely confuse the compass.

henick · Jun 19, 2016

If you look at the warnings it had gps issues throughout the entire flight at various points of the map away from the takeoff site so unless he calibrated it badly from that concrete structure to begin with it would have cleared up when he got into the air.

Pasted:
"Warning:Satellite Positioning Off. Fly with caution"

I had my p3p act wonky one day similar to poster here, scared the crap out of me but I was able to land despite it feeling like it wasn't responding to stick input properly. Did a heart pounding recalibrate of the IMU/compass and it flew fine in same location next day. It was nerve wracking but I guess I responded appropriately. Didn't have any further issues... and I survived without damage...

I always do a 2nd take of my surroundings before calibrating over my current known good compass calibration.

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

Meta4 said:
Taking off from a large reinforced concrete slab is not "ordinary"
It hovered for 46 seconds at 10 feet or less with a constant compass error warning.
But nothing was done to stop the flight?

That's correct.

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

msinger said:
Is the patio made of concrete? If so, it's full of metal. That will surely confuse the compass.

View attachment 57597

It is, I was unaware of the danger of metal when flying. To clear it up, does this only pose an issue when taking off from an area with large amounts of metal near it or is it at anytime during flight avoid metal?

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

henick said:
If you look at the warnings it had gps issues throughout the entire flight at various points of the map away from the takeoff site so unless he calibrated it badly from that concrete structure to begin with it would have cleared up when he got into the air.

Pasted:
"Warning:Satellite Positioning Off. Fly with caution"

Does this mean the compass doesn't match the gps?

I had my p3p act wonky one day similar to poster here, scared the crap out of me but I was able to land despite it feeling like it wasn't responding to stick input properly. Did a heart pounding recalibrate of the IMU/compass and it flew fine in same location next day. It was nerve wracking but I guess I responded appropriately. Didn't have any further issues... and I survived without damage...

I always do a 2nd take of my surroundings before calibrating over my current known good compass calibration.

Like I said I had no control, I do see the warning for the GPS issues but was unable to do anything about it.

Also, my P3P had warnings of this nature often but never had this outcome. It would change GPS status' often during flight but would only for a second or two.

sethtinsley · Jun 19, 2016

Northern Observer said:
Did the start of your flight resemble this one of mine? I had a full battery though, and the bail out move was to gun it up, to avoid the trees as the only control I had was the throttle. My compass was hooped due my poor take off site (total dumb ***, not thinking that day). The classic toilet bowl circle yours made certainly points to compass issues.

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