This is exactly what happened to my P3 advanced last Friday and that was my 2nd flight of P3! The first flight was smooth and I was able to flew my P3 up to about 100 feet and took a good 360 degree video. The next day, I wanted to show my wife how to fly the P3 in my backyard where the first flight took place the day before. It occurred that I have to calibrate the compass twice. Nevertheless the apps shows green and okay to fly. So the P3 went up to about 80 feet and hovered for a couple of minutes. Suddenly it drifted at high speed in a straight line. It was kind of panic at that moment but I was able to control it descend to my neighbor's backyard, but the P3 was somehow crash-landed and the propellers were damaged. The rotors appear to be okay and camera still working. I noticed from the flight record in my iPad that the GPS was switch to ATTI when it started flying away. I remember the GPS signal was showing 8 satellites, typically I would see about 12-15. I didn't see the message of "compass error" although it might appear when it started to fly away but I was probably too panic to see that message. I was puzzled that there was no wind that day and if P3 was flying at ATTI mode, the drifting should not caused by the wind but something else. I also saw that the home point was set correctly in my backyard so it must not be the reason someone else raised in the past that if the home point is not correctly set, phantom might fly towad an incorrect home point if the connection was lost. I believe my controller had a good connection to P3.
Later I got in touch with DJI online support. the guy online examined my flight record and was talking that there was some interference of GPS and compass which causes the fly-away. It looks like DJI is aware of this issue and they recommended me get a RMA number and ship my P3 for repair in their LA site.
but I noticed that on 5/22/2015 DJI released a new firmware which seems to address the compass issue..
https://www.dji.com/info/releases/phantom-3-v1-1-9
Major Updates: 1. Fixed issue of some aircraft unable to determine their altitudes. 2. Fixed issue of the DJI Pilot app unable to obtain and display battery error history. 3. Fixed issue of the compass calibration progress not being displayed properly.
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