Well just my second flight and its ended in disaster!  I was flying over the edge of a cliff and 2 meters out and the phantom 3 lost all controls and descended into the sea (shallow). The monitor reported sonic senor error and said land immediately at which point it was too late! Any idea how I can get the log? So dissapointed!

which mode were you flying?  Should of been in P mode with GPS enabled.  That takes over when visual is not good

ntfa@sbcglobal. Posted at 2015-5-6 23:58
which mode were you flying?  Should of been in P mode with GPS enabled.  That takes over when visual ...

Yes P mode

did you have satellite connection?

andrewbritton76 Posted at 2015-5-7 00:14
Yes P mode

Is this your first Phantom and can you describe more conditions of the crash?  Did you go straight out over the cliff with out a flight test?  Did GPS show green and did you check the sats?  Did you calibrate?
I actually experienced this once with a P2 however I figured this was fixed in the P3.   

dlew21@mac.com Posted at 2015-5-7 01:35
Is this your first Phantom and can you describe more conditions of the crash?  Did you go straight ...

I was actually 9 minutes into the flight and had flown up and down the coast. I then brought it back to me and then flew out over the edge of the mini cliff. As soon as it went over the edge it descended into the sea  I had Gps and everything was fine- calm conditions etc. The only thing I noticed but by which point it was too late was it said on the app "ultrasonic sensor error please land immediately" except I couldnt as there was no control!

andrewbritton76 Posted at 2015-5-7 01:41
I was actually 9 minutes into the flight and had flown up and down the coast. I then brought it ba ...

Sorry I meant to say i had done the compass calibration and it was using the updated firmware too.

Thanks for posting this info...  Now I am happy my DJI Phantom 3 has not shipped yet.  When they release a couple of more firmware updates and users stop reporting so many crashes I might be willing to risk flying it.

Did you find your Phantom? Since it water-damaged im afraid that you cannot export the data yourself, you need to send it back to us.

DJI-Autumn Posted at 2015-5-7 17:16
Did you find your Phantom? Since it water-damaged im afraid that you cannot export the data yourself ...

Hi- Thanks yes it is on the way to germany now - I took it back to my dealer and he has sent it off. Thanks!! I will keep you updated!

I too am getting sonic errors. I start the normal order and let phantom sit, acquire sat's and home point. sonic shows ground hight normal. Then all of a sudden I get the error and distance goes way off. All before starting props. I shut off and turn back on, and goes to normal. Any Ideas out there. Yes new firmware, yes compass calibration,

I guess its better to switch off the ultrasonic sensors, i will do it until new firmwares will evolve the product

Really sorry about the situation. That truly truly sucks.

It is the sort of thing we don't want to have to fear. Wonder if it would make sense to disable the sensor when flying outside (99,9% of the time for most people)? Of if that is overreacting? It makes little sense that a malfunctioning sensor should result in loss of power.

/Off-topic/
It makes me wonder if I should be worried about a glitch where the camera seems to turn off, the Pilot App says "loss of signal", but it flies perfectly. However, the camera seems to reboot, the gimbal does its dance (still flying), the video that it was recording it seems to restore (like you would restore a video by restarting the Phantom) with the telltale sign of a videofile with the date of 31th of December 2013.

Why not disable it? Unless you fly inside there is little use for it. I've gotten the error and I happen to disagree with the official DJI statement of "it can't cause problems". I even spoke to a UAV engineer (government employee as well as custom builder) and asked him straight out "can the sonar and camera array result in machine malfunctions?"

His answer? "Sure they can". He further explained:
"the camera system could interrupt what it sees incorrectly. The "onar could read a bounced signal from a wall as whats below it. Then crash or fly away or....

I'm glad DJI employees have faith in the products and software - I do also. But, all machines can have problems and all systems have bugs.
Granted my engineer friend is not talking about DJI specifically - but their sonar and camera are no different than others.

The only real question here is whether you are using those sensors for your flying? I'm not, so they are off.

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-5-8 09:24
Why not disable it? Unless you fly inside there is little use for it. I've gotten the error and I ha ...

Thanks! I really hope that when it gets to Germany they can decipher what happened as I am confident It was not pilot error. I had no control over the drone and it descended into the water. I also hope the flight recorder in the drone is at least waterproof.  It is interesting that I was flying over bright limescale rock that was dazzling white at the time with the camera facing straight down. The bright rock ends abruptly and as soon as I flew over the darker sea it descended into the water

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131309807@N03/shares/9vC30s
I go the the error too, I was allowed to fly still, Im sorry to say but it could be user error. Thats just my two cents it was still picking up gps signal and stayed at the right altitude.

hendryx32@gmail Posted at 2015-5-9 01:41
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131309807@N03/shares/9vC30s
I go the the error too, I was allowed to f ...

Pretty sure it wasnt pilot error but I cant be sure that the ultasonic sensor was what caused it to go down. But it was going down and there is nothing I could do as it was unresponsive and app said ultrasonic sensor error.

Since you have contacted DJI Germany, I would allow them to analyze the data to determine what happened.  This has been discussed on RCG.  The data is inconclusive and our service center should be able to sort it out.

Hi have you had any news back from dji yet, hope things are getting sorted for you. Learnt about this and the 2 other problems over on phantom pilots last week. hope things are getting sorted for everyone involved and of course dji are getting to the route of the problem. But concerned that we have not learnt anything from dji on how these few crafts have gone down and if it is indeed a problem at the moment and if a firmware update can correct it. They had a few problems from the start with the inspire, but they corrected that problem very quickly with a firmware update. Its been just over a week now since the first legitimate report, and we have still not learnt anything from dji on the matter which worrys me a little. While i was happy to learn of the new firmware update yesterday, i was all so hoping for the news that the update came because a problem had been recognised concerning the few selected crashes and been corrected with the new firmware update. Lets hope for something soon guys.

Hi all , I am a new user and had the same issue ( sonic sensor) testing and learning in a "controlled" environment .  So I still need to figure where to switch it off

andrewbritton76 Posted at 2015-5-7 22:19
Hi- Thanks yes it is on the way to germany now - I took it back to my dealer and he has sent it of ...

I just sent in my Phantom in for repair.  The 2.4 data link never worked from day one. They said it will take 4-6 weeks to repair and don't contact us.  Hope you get better service in Germany and the USA.

Qucik video I put together.

why are you posting that video here?

powerjosl Posted at 2015-5-12 14:40
why are you posting that video here?

I think he posted it to illustrate that you can fly off a cliff witout the ultrasonic sensor crashing the bird.

I had the same error of the "ultrasonic system erros" and my quad make the same movement like this other guy on the next link.



In my case the phantom hit the ground and hit the camara... now I cannot take pictures or video... the image is still shown but at the time I want to take a picture the screen goes all black, the GPS connection goes to "NO SIGNAL" and after 6 seconds it is all normal again....


I suggest that everyone now has to deactivate the sensors until an upgrade comes out.

by sensors you guys mean the vps ?

arthurbuquen@gm Posted at 2015-5-13 23:58
by sensors you guys mean the vps ?

Yes it is a sensor

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-5-8 15:45
Since you have contacted DJI Germany, I would allow them to analyze the data to determine what happened.  This has been discussed on RCG.  The data is inconclusive and our service center should be able to sort it out.

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