RIP P3P - P3P went crazy and crashed fatally

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

Last Tuesday during the morning I went shot a job with my beloved Phantom 3 Pro.

But when I stared it presented several errors in the compass…I tried calibrate it several times, without success.

After looking for a lot I found a place that the compass wasn’t presented error… and I flew a short period of time but suddenly the compass presented error during the flight and I did a fast and rude landing… because it seemed to be with a strange behavior...

So after the work, in the evening in order to verify if the Phantom was ok I flew it again near my house…

I calibrated the compass, the first time it showed error again but second time it calibrated perfectly.

I flew 20 min. and nothing happened… all was ok… but when it was about 20m it has a weird behavior again … It stared to go to one side even I hadn’t touch the stick… this scared me…

I landed it and calibrated the compass again…

I flew with it very low altitude and all seems to going ok… so I decided to flew a little bit higher altitude and when it was about 11m I stopped it and I did some quickly movements to right and to left in order to verify if it was responding to my commands and all was ok… all seemed to be ok at this point when suddenly it went crazy and flew to the right… very fast… I tried to push the stick to the opposite side(to the left) and to down… but it seemed to not respond to my commands… then I tried to push to higher altitude to avid crash it in other house but it didn’t respond..

After a short period of time a listen a crash sound… (

After my amazement I found it by the map in the app in other house aprox. 30m from I was… and tks god it not hurts anybody…. but it was completely destroyed…(see photos)

I was very sad with that!

The Phantom always seem to be very reliable for me… all flight were ok at this point.

This is sad because I lost an investment (here it cost aprox. 5 times the value in US) and is sad also because I lost my confidence on it… it is a pity!

Now I’m trying to figure out what deepened with it… the flight plan is in the link below… Was the IMU’s defective? Was the compass?

I’d like to discover the issue in order to conquer the confidence on it again and try to avoid this happen again in the, maybe next Phantom.

Someone could help me in order to find out the problem?

Did someone had a similar problem?

I attached the photos and the flight plan.

Thank you!

Additional INFO

I bought it at may 15th... in Brazil...

Firmware version was v 1.3.20
I flew 22h 31min.
Total distance 135.867m
Total flights 247
The battery was 60% when crashed
The final horizontal velocity was 19.4m/s
The GPS signal was perfect during all last flight
The compass was ok and calibrated during the last flight

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[robsquad]

pics are showing error

 

[dirkclod]

Sure hate to hear this Gab !
No pictures as rob said .

 

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

pics are showing error

Thank you rob!
I re-uploaded the photos... please try again..
Again, thank you!

 

[Fplvert]

Wow Gabriel, that looks bad. So sorry about the crash.

Did you happen to check your compass value when you were having trouble with error? It's usually around 1500 if it's got a good calibration. Any ferrous metal or magnets can interfere with good compass calibration.

Hopefully you'll figure out what happened and get your bird fixed!

 

[vgt]

Probably another unnecessary calibration.

 

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

Wow Gabriel, that looks bad. So sorry about the crash.

Did you happen to check your compass value when you were having trouble with error? It's usually around 1500 if it's got a good calibration. Any ferrous metal or magnets can interfere with good compass calibration.

Hopefully you'll figure out what happened and get your bird fixed!

Thank you Fplvert!
Actually I did several compass calibrations... sometimes it presented error but before the last flight the calibration was ok!

My doubt... can the compass leave the Phantom crazy like this?
Or is this about IMU error or bad calibration?

Now my great concern is if the bird can present compass error during the flight and crash because of that... Does this proceeds?

Regards,
Gabriel

 

[Fplvert]

Thank you Fplvert!
Actually I did several compass calibrations... sometimes it presented error but before the last flight the calibration was ok!

My doubt... can the compass leave the Phantom crazy like this?
Or is this about IMU error or bad calibration?

Now my great concern is if the bird can present compass error during the flight and crash because of that... Does this proceeds?

Regards,
Gabriel

I think the compass issue you were having caused your loss of control.
You should start a RMA with DJI. File a claim, send the bird back. They will look at the logs to determine their responsibility for your loss.
Be prepared that the turn-around time is 6-8 weeks and you will have to pay for repairs if they determine it was not a hardware or software problem.
They may offer you a discount on a new bird instead. It's usually 30%

 

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

I think the compass issue you were having caused your loss of control.
You should start a RMA with DJI. File a claim, send the bird back. They will look at the logs to determine their responsibility for your loss.
Be prepared that the turn-around time is 6-8 weeks and you will have to pay for repairs if they determine it was not a hardware or software problem.
They may offer you a discount on a new bird instead. It's usually 30%

Thank you so much Fplvert, for you advice!
I'll do that!

I think that the most important now is find out what exactly happened with it, I would like to trust on it again and also know how we can avoid this behavior in the the other birds... because even with the small Phantoms it can be very dangerous!

Have a great week!
Gabriel

 

[RoyVa]

Sorry for you loss. What a shame. And again what goes up must come down... Somewhere. Ouch!

 

[L.Chaney]

Hey Gabe, similar thing happened with me. DJI told me that as a first time crash they are replacing my unit with a brand new one to expedite the turnaround. It's gotta get fixed anyhow so what could it hurt?
Good luck! I get my new bird in 2 days!

 

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

Hey Gabe, similar thing happened with me. DJI told me that as a first time crash they are replacing my unit with a brand new one to expedite the turnaround. It's gotta get fixed anyhow so what could it hurt?
Good luck! I get my new bird in 2 days!

Wow Chaney, this is amazing!
I'm happy for you!
And thank you for the wishes!

What was the behavior of your Phantom before it crash?

Did they (DJI) find out what happened with your bird?
Because for me this is very important to avoid problems like this in the future for me and for all pilots... I need to regain confidence in the aircraft... this is very important to me! I'm very responsible during the flight and I need feel confidence in aircraft to fly again!

My present concern is that it can really hurt badly a person... in my case when it crashed (11m) its velocity was 16.4m/s or almost 70 km/h or aprox. 43 miles/hour... this is very dangerous!

Look the battery condition found 2 days after the crash...

The camera was ripped from drone but remained almost intact... visually...

 

[L.Chaney]

They didn't tell me what happened, only that they were sending a new one.
I was at 32% battery after flying for about 14 minutes and everything went black on my iPad. As soon as that happened it started "landing" right into a tree top then tumbling down to its demise.
I had all the files for DJI in case they asked for them but they didn't.
That's one messed up battery!

 

[JKDSensei]

Man, really sorry about the Phallen Phantom.
Does anyone else think maybe is good idea to ground their Phantom when encountering odd Compass or GPS issues at least until the solar flare is past or whatever is causing the issue is definitely resolved?
I read so many stories like this where there was one or more warnings...flew anyway and BAM!!!

Friendly PHOTO Suggestion......

Only upload or link to photos of resolution 1024 x 768 MAX when a larger photo is not needed.
It slows down things when you use a photo WAY larger than necessary.

Carry on.

 

[zibj1]

Every dji drone will crash at one point. It will be nice to start crash record. With info like date purchased fw version and how many flight hrs was on it. And maybe some more info

 

[Bryce]

How can we tell how many flight hours are on it?

 

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

They didn't tell me what happened, only that they were sending a new one.
I was at 32% battery after flying for about 14 minutes and everything went black on my iPad. As soon as that happened it started "landing" right into a tree top then tumbling down to its demise.
I had all the files for DJI in case they asked for them but they didn't.
That's one messed up battery!

But as I understood the Phantom did't go crazy, did it? It was a app/RC problem... is that right?
BTW did you send your bird to them?

I think would be important that they tell you/us about the issue... don't you think?
Thank you so much for share your experience!

 

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

Man, really sorry about the Phallen Phantom.
Does anyone else think maybe is good idea to ground their Phantom when encountering odd Compass or GPS issues at least until the solar flare is past or whatever is causing the issue is definitely resolved?
I read so many stories like this where there was one or more warnings...flew anyway and BAM!!!

Friendly PHOTO Suggestion......

Only upload or link to photos of resolution 1024 x 768 MAX when a larger photo is not needed.
It slows down things when you use a photo WAY larger than necessary.

Carry on.

Thank you so much JKDSensei for your suggestion!... Actually I was in doubt about that... I thought that the site would format the photos for one specific maximum size or just for thumbnails... anyway thank you!

Regarding the compass calibration I did it several times before I fly... actually when I went really fly the calibration process was well done...
My present doubt is... Can the compass make the drone crazy or just the IMU (or other defective sensor) can promote that disorientation on the aircraft???

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Thank you so much JKDSensei for your suggestion!... Actually I was in doubt about that... I thought that the site would format the photos for one specific maximum size or just for thumbnails... anyway thank you!

Regarding the compass calibration I did it several times before I fly... actually when I went really fly the calibration process was well done...
My present doubt is... Can the compass make the drone crazy or just the IMU (or other defective sensor) can promote that disorientation on the aircraft???

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Phantom Pilots forum. I hope that you will take advantage of the benefits that come with membership and that you will be able to use the forum for the exchange of innovative ideas and as a resource for current developments in Phantom quadcopter’s.

If you upload the photo via the upload option you can choose thumbnail or full size.
Please restrict photos to a max 600-800 size.

PS - as per the rules - "The use of bold, large or colored fonts should be used sparingly."

 

[Gabriel Lehto Gomes]

Every dji drone will crash at one point. It will be nice to start crash record. With info like date purchased fw version and how many flight hrs was on it. And maybe some more info

I bought it at may 15th... in Brazil...

Firmware version was v 1.3.20
I flew 22h 31min.
Total distance 135.867m
Total flights 247
The battery was 60% when crashed
The final horizontal velocity was 19.4m/s
The GPS signal was perfect during all last flight
The compass was ok and calibrated during the last flight

I'll try some more info... but I turned it on but I notice some smoke going out the bird so I turned it off quickly...