Sorry if this winds up in the P3 section, but most of you pros with P3's have had one or several P2V+'s anyway! Another lesson. Sorry for the story, but there are a few good points about safety here...

So I have this P2V+ that I had crashed pretty hard (I wrote a previous thread on how well it survived). It caught a powerline right under the props and spun it around about 50 times and then flung it to the ground (asphault). It landed upside down and everything except the props looked OK although it had a couple of pretty good 'road rash' marks on the ends of 2 of the legs. I immediately took it, put new props on it and fired up and it worked fine. Even had zero yaw drift when it was pretty bad out of the box.
After this I kept having Wifi problems. Whether crash related or firmware related is really unknown, but since I had another V+ (version 1, however), I just flew it and set the crashed bird aside.
After flying my V1 into a lake (yes, maybe I should give up the hobby), I started messing with the crashed bird. It would fly OK, I just had no user interface (GUI). Then yesterday, the Wifi started working, and working well. I fired it up and got the GUI. No picture, just the swirling indicator that it's trying (not that anyone has ever seen THAT problem before).
I'm in my yard in a fairly tight neighorhood, so don't like to go more than 20-25' high in my back yard to test things out. It worked fine. I landed it and saw that if I just hovered for another minute or two, the battery would be at perfect storage level. So I take off and get about 15' in the air and start hearing a real high pitched squeel. I start to lower it back down and all of the sudden it turns 90 degrees sideways and shot totally horizontally over into my friends/neighbors (big) tree and then lands upside down on his roof with the power still on, but motors not running. When I say 'shot', I mean like out of a canon.
We got it down, the rear lights are flashing white, and the red lights are off. The battery is about 1/4" out, but obviously still connected. I shut it down and took it home. One of the ends of the arms apparently got so hot (it would seem) that it melted bending the end up so the propellor got stuck hitting the arm, causing it to react the way it did. The motors had all cooled by the time I got them home, but they all turn exactly the same, indicating to me it was not a motor issue.
It currently is unrecognized by my PC from either port. I even tried reinstalling the WIN driver. The camera and gimbal have not been scratched in the least through all this so I would have hoped to at least be able to read the SD Card. When I turn it on the gimbal sets itself up normally too. Maybe I can sell the camera/gimbal on ebay. I see them going for almost $500! ...Yeah, right.
If anyone has any ideas on what the lights are trying to tell me that might be helpful. From what I've found it means it's in return to home mode, but the red lights should still be on regardless. I guess I'll take it apart sometime soon and see if I can figure out what got so hot, or if it bent due to another reason. I'll let you know what I find. Man alive I wish I had the video on.

Safety notes to myself:

Don't take for granted that because you're in your back yard (in my rural neighborhood) to test things that it can't be hazardous to others. You just never know when something will break or go wrong. However slim, there is a chance someone can get hurt. I know it's almost impossible not to check everything before a trip/hike/whatever, but others please take this for what it's worth. I can't say I won't ever test things in my yard again, but it will be with an unwrecked bird and with a few more safety precautions in place (tethered maybe).

Stand the hell back from your Phantom when you're taking off or landing it, or even hovering at a low level. I was standing ~20' from where this happened, and would have been hard pressed to get out of the way if it had shot in my direction. Had I been standing close to it, it would have literally defaced me. I'd have been chopped to bits! This guy was pissed and flying props first! I might start wearing a full face helmet!

If you wreck your Phantom, have it checked by someone that is very knowledgable about them. It should most likely be sent in for repair.

MAYBE DJI WILL GIVE ME CREDIT TOWARD A P3A or P3P FOR GETTING IT OFF THE STREET? (I'm done with Wifi, sorry). MAYBE?

Barney

Barney,
Sorry to hear about the crash and appreciate the "heads up" advice on taking off and landing, i guess we can never be too sure everything will happen the way we want/hope.
Just a wild guess but i think one of the motors was seizing and the others were trying to compensate and boom...gone in 60 seconds.....just a guess of course but based on you hearing a squeal it could  have only been a motor unless the batter was in the process of exhaling....best of luck sorting it out and interestingly, parting it out may not be a bad idea!!

Northofthe49th Posted at 2016-2-22 19:43
Barney,
Sorry to hear about the crash and appreciate the "heads up" advice on taking off and landing ...

Thanks North. I'm inclined to agree with you, it's just odd that the motor in question spins identically to the others.  The bent arm could be from the crash, with warm plastic. The red stripes look to have started shriveling up from the heat.
I have my P3P I am very happy with and thinking of picking up a backup while the price is good and they are still available. That will hold me for a long, long time.

Barney

High pitched squeal sounds like a bearing issue in one of the motors. The crash could have freed it up again. Definately a winter repair project. New she'll and I'd the bad motor and replace all four ESC's. That's a start. Calculate the repair cost if it to night part it out especially with the new ones around $499 when on specials. Good luck either way.