Saturday was a bad day. A friend asked me to film shots of a pre-wedding celebration of some paddleboarders on a local river. I happily agreed and was excited as I knew the shots would be very cool with the sun rising in the back. I got to my takeoff destination, a local bridge and set everything up, had all my satellites and calibrated the compass. Calibration failed. I switched out the battery with a new one, waited for GPS lock, recalibrated succesufully. I got the shots which were very neat, exaclty what I was looking to do. On my return back, I rose up a few extra feet to clear the trees dangling over the water and all of a sudden, the Phantom 2 started going haywire. It started shaking side-to-side and went bezerk. I ran off the bridge and tried to get under it as much as I could as I knew it would crash. It was over land at the time but then tilted hard to the right almost completely on it's side flashed red lights lost all power diving straight into the most dangerous, deepest part of the river with my Immerson RC 5.8 GHZ transmitter, H3-3D, GoPro Hero 3, iOSD mini, everything, gone. forever. I was unable to recover it as it is not worth risking a life to dive down to get. I called DJI and filled out the support forms yaddah yaddah. My question is, what do you think they will be able to give me in return for my loss? I understand criminals would try telling a story similar to this so I am not expecting them to refund me but possibly give me a discount on my next purchase.... Quick note, when I ran to get under it, I noticed a man standing next to his car in the parking lot next to the river with a Phantom 3 remote in his hand... does anyone think it could have been interference, he was not flying his........ Also, I have some parts like an extra battery and hard case if anyone is interested....

I had this happen to me!, I've even got it on film!.... Scary!, lucky for me I was very high up and it recovered itself!!...... Brought it back and removed the naza unit ( FLIGHT CONTROLLER ) and binned it. Bought a new one and job done. Hearing of this more now. Dji will pay nothing and to be fair the p2 is a old unit now, AND the only way Dji can help you is if they have the drone to check over..... You don't. That's the risk flying over water. Sorry pal.

I'm sorry for your loss. The outcomes of these types of situation can vary case by case, but they would look into providing some sort of assistance in recovering the loss of the aircraft.

In regards to the potential interference due to another DJI aircraft in the area, it would be unlikely due to the channel hopping ability of the Phantom 2 and Phantom 3 frequencies. They vary enough to ensure that two units would not interfere with each other. It takes at least 7 or more like units to cause noticeable signal interference.

You calibrated on a metal structure called a bridge. Unless your bridge was made of wood then you are really asking for a flyaway. It had warned you initially by failing the calibration. The moment you got some distance away from the bridge, the compass values would have changed and as a result would have given the NAZA conflicting information.

There are 2 camps of compass dancers - those who do it at every flight and those who don't. I'm in the later camp. If I think I need a compass near my flight location, I would google up the closest open field with minimal concrete and metal structures and compass dance there.

quanthonytrang Posted at 2016-5-26 12:42
You calibrated on a metal structure called a bridge. Unless your bridge was made of wood then you ar ...

Then why did it successfully calibrate the second time around? I've calibrated near plenty of large metal structures before and have no problem whatsoever....

glataif Posted at 2016-5-26 09:03
Then why did it successfully calibrate the second time around? I've calibrated near plenty of larg ...

There could have been several influencing factors, the bridge, the other flyer, conflicts with your set up, who knows for sure, and none of us know what else was going on in the area. Unfortunately without the Phantom or picts and video it will be tough to prove.

I have not calibrated my compass since last fall and will not again until i see or sense something out of the norm in my flying area..

Sorry for the loss and good luck with your quest!