Hey guys. Just as the title states, I was flying my P3A yesterday on it's 8th flight. I have more than 2 years flight experience. I was filming my son surfing yesterday in the outer banks of NC. Take off battery 100%. Total flight time 14 min. Battery at loss of control 42%. I have a clear line of sight and was about 100 yards from the drone when I lost complete control of it. The aircraft briefly landed in 6" of water then suddenly lifted off to around 300-400 feet and hoovered in place. I tried everything I could with the remote to bring it down or land it. It was completely unresponsive. I had the red bar at the top middle showing I had no control over the aircraft. Then, without any feedback, it dropped from the sky at 400 feet and landed it about 4' of water. Battery is toast. Aircraft is in tact but fried. The gimbal camera did come off upon impact.
I have started a ticket with DJI 326662. I have also uploaded the file to Healthy Drones but other than loss of communications, I don't see anything.

I would appreciate it if anyone could review this last flight log and see if you can offer me any explaination. Not sure if DJI will replace my P3A under warranty because of this but I'm hoping they will at least let me buy the P3A drone replacement at cost. Who really knows. Any help or advice is appreciated.

Here is my Healthy Drone link.
http://healthydrones.com/main?share=XROZAv

Sorry for your crash, FlyboyNC. Have you downloaded the DAT flies and sent them to our support for diagnosis?

Sorry to hear that. Did you recover your drone, or it fell into water? Were all four propellers there?

Hope you get a warranty claim and  get a replacement soon.

Where did it crash?  What happened?  I can't even see it on the map (it looks like a continuous loop) and the Healthy Drones summary doesn't have enough data.  You need to share the csv and kml options within Healthy Drones to get a better idea of what happened.  I see you have trouble with the signal at distance, could have been bad antenna alignment or an obstruction on the beach (a patrol vehicle, lifeguard station etc).  When you say you "lost control", what do you mean exactly?  Was it just loss of vision, or was there some error that came up on your screen?  I can't see any errors in the Healthy Drones summary, and they may be present in the csv.  Otherwise, try uploading the record to Phantom Help, their results are a bit more detailed.

is healthy drones an app?

tkulhanek Posted at 2016-7-29 04:32
is healthy drones an app?

A website:  http://healthydrones.com/

DJI-Paladin Posted at 2016-7-27 14:06
Sorry for your crash, FlyboyNC. Have you downloaded the DAT flies and sent them to our support for d ...

Yes. Spoke to Peter today. He is having someone contact me concerning flight review.

DJI-H.C Posted at 2016-7-27 16:26
Sorry to hear that. Did you recover your drone, or it fell into water? Were all four propellers ther ...

Yes. The aircraft was in tact. Only the camera gimbal came off upon impact. It was in about 4 feet of water and by the time my son went over to it, the camera was gone. He picked the aircraft up from the water and brought it to me.

FlyboyNC Posted at 2016-7-30 03:28
Yes. Spoke to Peter today. He is having someone contact me concerning flight review.

Hope this issue could be figured out soon.

DJI-Paladin Posted at 2016-7-29 21:33
Hope this issue could be figured out soon.

Peter said he would have someone contact me concerning the final flight log. He said they would call me by the end of the day yesterday (Friday). I still have not heard from anyone since I filled this issue on Monday. If you are able to contact someone in this department that can provide me some feedback or let me know my options, I would greatly appreciate it.

FlyboyNC Posted at 2016-7-31 09:45
Peter said he would have someone contact me concerning the final flight log. He said they would ca ...

Hi, can you give me your case number here in the response?   I'll help you take a look.

Sorry for your loss, must be unpleasant, that's why I avoid flying over water, I do like however how every flight crash opens up an investigation, this one seems interesting, when you say lost control of it, did your remote led turned red? did you set it to RTH upon lost connection with the RC, it could have been set to over, than it ran out of battery and crashed, or some water splashes got into it, electronics and water no good friends, hope to figure out what happened soon.

DJI-H.C Posted at 2016-7-30 22:33
Hi, can you give me your case number here in the response?   I'll help you take a look.

#326662. This is my ticket number. I still, as of Monday haven't heard from anyone.

FlyboyNC Posted at 2016-8-1 07:20
#326662. This is my ticket number. I still, as of Monday haven't heard from anyone.

I just opened up a support ticket with DJI, after reading your post I am realizing it is going to be over a week before someone gets in touch with me regarding the P3 Advance I purchased 2 weeks ago.

Sorry for you mishap. I have to say I get a charge out of some of the responses you have gotten back. Not to be critical but to me you have described you incident very well. Some must not be reading you original post very well. Sounds like you have a lot of experience, so to me I doubt it was an error on your part, but we all make mistakes. Just wondering, as far as your Healthy-Drones report, it look like you are on a beach and doesn't look like an obstructions. Signal was fairly good from what I see at the except on spot a the start, but I have had issues like that and never had the drone do anything odd. I wonder what made it want to land in the water? Did it just drop down. My guess is when it dipped into the water and you said it shot up and then you didn't have any control, maybe it shorted something out from getting wet? Was you RTH set to 400 ft. Maybe it was attempting a RTH and climbed to that altitude, didn't know what to do so it hovered at that height until battery was exhausted....then crashed. Just a few opinions. Will be curious what DJI comes back with.
As far as I am concerned about flying over water, if you were over land it was still going to crash. A lot of us fly over and around water.

robbykennedy@ho Posted at 2016-8-2 01:49
I just opened up a support ticket with DJI, after reading your post I am realizing it is going to  ...

Hi, normally that's not the case, we had some miscommunication with this client. Sorry about that.

I looked up weather on this day, Monday, July 25, 2016, in the area: https://www.wunderground.com/his ... amp;reqdb.wmo=99999

Wind gusts up to 40 km/h at Stumpy Point, NC, but the flight was about 30 km further to the east into the ocean, near Rodanthe. Usually wind is stronger at open ocean as there are no obstacles. In any case it seems to be a windy day.

Well. DJI techs have concluded their investigation. They are going to offer me 15% off a new aircraft. I've purchased 3 phantoms from them over the past 12 months and the best they can do is 15% off. I am VERY DISPLEASED with this outcome. I had total loss of control of the aircraft when it landed itself in the ocean. They told me today I should have turned off the VPS. I told them the VPS is useless at 15 feet or higher. I was nearly 20 feet above the water. I am really disappointed in their willingness to help me out. I didn't expect a free aircraft replacement but I certainly figured they'd do a little better than 15%. Shaking my head...

robbykennedy@ho Posted at 2016-8-1 13:49
I just opened up a support ticket with DJI, after reading your post I am realizing it is going to  ...

Don't be in any hurry for a response. They took over a week for someone to call or reach out to me by phone. Then playing phone tag with them back is a complete nightmare!!!! I've spoken to Oscar, Marc f., Peter and someone totally new today that pretty much told me tough luck, 15% is the best we can do for you. I am questioning my future relationship with the company at the current moment.

FlyboyNC Posted at 2016-8-3 21:43
Well. DJI techs have concluded their investigation. They are going to offer me 15% off a new aircraf ...

It's sad they will not work something out with you. Why not make you a lifetime customer right?

jnbgtr Posted at 2016-8-3 21:29
This companies customer service is unparalleled in any industry for being the worst of the worst.  ...

hi bud

Where are you based ? as i could be interested in batteries/case. you can message me if its easier for you.

thanks

jnbgtr Posted at 2016-8-3 22:34
I am in the US (Northeast).  I am done with this company.  Never got resolution with my drone, dou ...

Thanks for the reply bud, as im in the uk the shipping would cost to much.thanks anyway tho bud.

     I also am not pleased with the outcome of their response to my crash when I observed with my own eye's what happened , they kept saying their data analysts showed something different , . For everything they said happened , I countered with facts , but their Data & how they used it said something different & no warranty coverage  
  I'll be happy to get my Drone back , but if I have another issue , I will be looking into another Manufacturer also.

FlyboyNC Posted at 2016-8-3 13:43
Well. DJI techs have concluded their investigation. They are going to offer me 15% off a new aircraf ...

Excuse me that doesn't make any sense?

How did they come to that conclusion given what you have stated and shown?

So they are saying the VPS caused the P3 to fly itself into the Ocean? What would turning the VPS off do to prevent such an event?

Something doesn't seem to add up...