Hello,

I am new to this form, yet I have flown drones before. I have phantom 4 pro. Last month, I was flying it in sport mode. Everything was great till suddenly it fell down. I took time locating it since I was flying it in a remote area. I have retrieved the drone recently. Its propellers and gimbals are broken, so I ordered new parts for it. Now, I need help to know what happen and how to avoid it. I was able to retrieve flight records from my phone, but not from the drone. I tried to connect it to my MacBook pro but it won’t connect.

This is the ling of the flight record of my last flight in which the drone fell.

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/FGGMC9O7ASABAZ9YWOXQ/

Could you please help me to know what happened?

I need to know before installing the new parts, so I can prevent this from happening again.

Your flight data helps rule out some possible causes of the incident but does not show what caused the problem.
The data ends with the drone in stable flight, well clear of any obstacles and with a healthy battery.
This suggests that a sudden loss of power was the issue.
That might have been caused by a hardware failure or the battery being dislodged.

Hi Gazora, I'm sorry to hear about the accident with your drone. If it is still within the warranty period, you can contact our support team via http://www.dji.com/support to open a case and apply for data analysis. By the way, for fly safety considerations, it is not recommended to repair the drone by yourself, you may send it in for a thorough diagnosis. We'll do our best to help this out. Thanks for your kind understanding.

DJI Natalia Posted at 1-4 19:25
Hi Gazora, I'm sorry to hear about the accident with your drone. If it is still within the warranty period, you can contact our support team via http://www.dji.com/support to open a case and apply for data analysis. By the way, for fly safety considerations, it is not recommended to repair the drone by yourself, you may send it in for a thorough diagnosis. We'll do our best to help this out. Thanks for your kind understanding.

I think it is out of warranty.

Labroides Posted at 1-4 12:46
Your flight data helps rule out some possible causes of the incident but does not show what caused the problem.
The data ends with the drone in stable flight, well clear of any obstacles and with a healthy battery.
This suggests that a sudden loss of power was the issue.

Is it possible that the drone was in sport mode and the fast movement caused the battery to be displaced?

Gazora Posted at 1-4 20:31
Is it possible that the drone was in sport mode and the fast movement caused the battery to be displaced?

Yes ... if the battery wasn't properly latched.
But as it was in Sport Mode for the whole flight, you'd expect a poorly latched battery to come loose earlier than this.

It would depend on how it was flown in sports mode, flying forward almost of the time wouldnt let the battery go, even a stop may not be enough, but a hard stop with reverse would be enough to drop it, also depends on how much easily the battery moves in and out of the chamber

Bashy Posted at 1-14 04:35
It would depend on how it was flown in sports mode, flying forward almost of the time wouldnt let the battery go, even a stop may not be enough, but a hard stop with reverse would be enough to drop it, also depends on how much easily the battery moves in and out of the chamber

I was reading these threads as I just acquired a Phantom P4P+ and have only got about an hour of flight.
I was pretty skeptical about the battery falling out but I'm super careful when I put it in to check the gap while I'm pulling on it to be sure the tabs are captive.
Anyway I was wondering if I could actually stick the battery partialy in without it being latched and Still power up the drone.

Well I found it can have a pretty big gap like a 1/16 th and still power up and think it's happy, Damn now I'm going to start inspecting the tabs as well.

Batteries falling out of P4's was a common problem early on.  Not sure what they did to solve the problem.  P3s and lower didn't have the problem.  So with a P4, I would be double careful to be sure the battery is fully inserted and clicked in.  Good luck.

I think on the P4P 2.0 there is a new addition to prevent this from happening and yes, you can fit them without the latching in fully, certainly with the P4P v1, I don't know about 2.0. I ALWAYS press in the latches, push in fully and then let go, then i try to remove it without pressing in the latches, do that has not failed me once, i do sommat similar with the props after losing one prior to take off.

Once I've fitted the props, I hold the motor and try to twist and pull the prop away (do not push though) and there's no need to do it hard, if its not fitted correctly it will just come away, once i know i cannot pull them off i then hold of the ac and look at the gap between the props and the motor to make sure they are all the same size. I do these religiously and sometimes i will check the battery up to 4 times before i let it take off.

Once in the air i will then lower it to about 6ft and i will then proceed to do quick and short stick movements, both sticks in all directions except for CSC. If it doesn't drop and performs as it should, only then do i let it go.

With the mini the is no need todo the battery check nor the prop checks other than to quickly run my fingers over them, if they are clean then its good to take off and do the stick dance, its so much quicker to fly than the P4P sorry, I'm waffling, just letting you know what i do to protect my AC's

In addition to the aforementioned battery secured. Check orientation on the map to avoid flyaway issues.  And always good to check cell levels right after takeoff.