Im probably looking in the worst possible place but i dont know what else to do at this point. Well since I dont really have a money tree I am not so happy with the E-Mail that I received back from the deciding people who decide the big decisions that effect the people like me's futures on weather or not replacement drones are coming or not! In my case they sent me this e mail that was kinda like listening to John Madden commentate a football game... You know just stating the obvious, so the e mail says unfortunately we were unable to determine why the drone was lost but A) we were able to determine by the flight logs that you were flying in p-gps mode and that the aircraft was responding well to the controlls and B) that after the pilot pushed 86% up on acceleration, 100% up pitch stick forward and 37% roll stick to the right that the flight ended abrubptly. All of these things are true!!! So what im not comprehending is how does a flight end abrubptly 420m away from the set homepoint and 74m altitude from the ground level of the take-off position? I can think of only one way that could be: here is my only explanation... The pilot has a friend climb a cell phone tower up to 74m in height and flys the drone into the arms of his friend climber who then takes a hammer to the drone and bashes on it until all signal is lost! But what would be the point in this???  IDK, there seems to b no good that may come from this scenario. Now the only other thing that could explain why the flight records show these demographs, and that is because the drone was not functioning as it should have been. Now since i had some repairs done to my phantom 4 naturally the first people im going to contact is the company who did the repairs, in this case its a company by the name of Dronefly based out of Calli. They were definately not placing any blame on me and said that the info that I made available to them was sufficient enough for them to come to the conclusion that there was no pilot error responsible for the drone to suddenly fall from the midnight sky, but they also denied any responsibility and directed me to the north american branch of DJI to replace my faulty drone. I am just a poor little consumer of products, and as a consumer i am a customer to many dbrands for many many many different things from food to butt whipe, some things I purchase on a daily basis and others on a by annual. A drone is not something I expect to be buying very often but if I buy one and the company that I trusted thousands of my hard earned dollars in betrays my trust you can bet that im going to do my part to direct some of your should have, could have, would have been customers to a company that finds value in good customer relations and at this point DJIs support department may as well be run by a bunch of thugs... Are they in Watts? Compton? somewher in Californiaz tho! So im gonna try to attatch my flight record if i can figure it out but I am also curious to see how long this post stays up, please any feedback is greatly appreciated and I am open to any suggestions that will help me to get back in the air as soon as possible.

I'm very sorry to hear the loss of your drone.
Could you please provide me with your case number?
I'll help to look into it.

"So what im not comprehending is how does a flight end abrubptly 420m away from the set homepoint and 74m altitude from the ground level of the take-off position? "

Obviously the flight did not end at 74 metres altitude.
If DJI actually said that, their wording is very poor.
They would have mean that  .. The flight record ends abruptly at 74 metres altitude etc etc.

That might be obvious but it's an important point.
If there is no record beyond that point, they can't tell what caused the loss of your Phantom.
Whether it was hit by a meteor, had a hardware problem, your tablet locked up and you flew it into a cliff or you flew behind an obstacle and lost contact, if there's no record for them to analyse, they can't tell what happened.

If you want to understand what happened, go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions to upload your flight record.
That will provide a display of the flight data.

If it doesn't make sense to you, come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone here will probably be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

Labroides Posted at 2016-11-9 01:49
"So what im not comprehending is how does a flight end abrubptly 420m away from the set homepoint an ...

also if they stated to me that i was flying in p-gps mode then if there was a problem with connection the craft would still return home? wouldnt it

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-9 19:09
also if they stated to me that i was flying in p-gps mode then if there was a problem with connect ...

It might .. but there are several factors that might prevented RTH.
Without seeing flight data, I can't really say much.
If you want answers, follow the instructions in my last post.
With a little luck there might be enough evidence up to the point the flight record stops to give you some idea.
But no-one can help you without seeing data.
Without data we have no idea what happened and you haven't given any explanation either.
All we know is that you lost lour Phantom.

Did you manage to recover your aircraft? Do you have any footage up to the point it ended? Anything to help work out what happened?

If you did not get it back, then there is a problem. Look at it from DJI's point of view. For all they know you might have sold it on eBay. But if there was a fault in the aircraft and the flight records show that, they are pretty good at replacing faulty aircraft.

Geebax Posted at 2016-11-9 02:58
Did you manage to recover your aircraft? Do you have any footage up to the point it ended? Anything  ...

I know how it looks without having the broken aircraft, and I have the flight record but cannot figure out how to post it for everyone to see. if someone really wants or thinks they could analize the data then i could take a video of it or just do what i did to share it with dronefly and Dji, give the login and password to my my Dji account

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-9 20:42
I know how it looks without having the broken aircraft, and I have the flight record but cannot fi ...

In post #4 above I told you how to post it.
Follow the instructions there.
You need to go into your tablet and find the .txt file and upload it.
Without data no-one has any idea what happened to your drone.

If that is too hard, just attach the .txt file
If you are using an Android phone or tablet, the flight records are in Internal Storage/DJI/dji.pilot/FlightRecord
They are all txt files and the file name includes the date.

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-8 22:09
also if they stated to me that i was flying in p-gps mode then if there was a problem with connect ...

Aloha Moneytree,

"They were definately not placing any blame on me and said that the info that I made available to them was sufficient enough for them to come to the conclusion that there was no pilot error responsible for the drone to suddenly fall from the midnight sky, . . ."

     Did you look at the path of your P4 on the map after your P4 failure to return?  It is also in your flight records.  You can replay your flight there.  You should sync it to the cloud so you do not loose it.  Then you may be able to track the location of the lost signal.  There may be all sorts of interference at that location that may help in locating your P4.  Hopefully it has not rained since you lost the signal.  If the P4 landed, it could still be in good condition.

     We have our fingers crossed!

Aloha and Drone On!

Mine fell out the sky 2 weeks ago. I synced my flight logs, posted on this forum and followed their advice with uploading files from my ipad to analysis sites and posted the results here. I uploaded the flight video of the flight that was cached on my ipad to youtube and posted a link here too. I gave as much info to DJI support including flight logs and the youtube link and with the amount of data they had from me and that retrievable from the drone they were able to confirm that it was a fault of the drone and would be repaired/replaced under warranty. If you need advice from DJI or this forum in the future then you might be better calming down a little before posting and try to be as detailed in your explanation of what happened, but without writing a full essay. I lost track of what your post was about, do you want advice about what happened to ensure it doesnt happen again, or people to agree that DJI support sometimes lack a good bedside manner, or just the opportunity to have a good rant. All options are good as long as we know.

spalding1968 Posted at 2016-11-9 04:51
Mine fell out the sky 2 weeks ago. I synced my flight logs, posted on this forum and followed their  ...

I suppose that I am venting just a little... never the less i truly feel that I have provided more than enough data to Dji support for them to give me a better explination than what they did. I have spen the last 2 months in limbo just waiting for a ruling and i just dont see how anyone could not see that this is a prime example of aircraft malfunction rather than pilot error. I wish i could post my flight record. I have synced to the cloud but dont see where there is an option to share in the forum.

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-9 22:35
I suppose that I am venting just a little... never the less i truly feel that I have provided more ...

"i just dont see how anyone could not see that this is a prime example of aircraft malfunction rather than pilot error"
Without seeing your flight data no-one can see anything about your flight.

"I wish i could post my flight record"
Either attach your .txt file from your tablet or upload it to Phantomhelp.com and post a link here.
What's the problem?  Come on give us a clue.
You can sit there in the dark or you can help people to help you.

Labroides Posted at 2016-11-9 01:49
"So what im not comprehending is how does a flight end abrubptly 420m away from the set homepoint an ...

i am not using the device that i use when i fly im using a windows tablet and have been having some difficulty getting my flight log posted, I only have my last 2 flights on the go app. If i gave you my login info and pass would you look at it for me and tell me what you think?

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-9 06:19
i am not using the device that i use when i fly im using a windows tablet and have been having som ...

lo

You should delete this info' immediately and change your password. This is a public form where anybody could use these details.

my problem is that there is no dji go app for surface pro and that is what im using, i do have the app on my i phone however cant figure out how to post my flight records from it

OK, have you got iTunes installed on your Surface Pro ?

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-9 23:30
my problem is that there is no dji go app for surface pro and that is what im using, i do have the a ...

Forget the surface pro for now.
The flight record is on your phone.
Go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
They have instructions there that will tell you how to upload the flight data from your phone to that site.
Follow those instructions to upload your flight record.
That will provide a display of the flight data.
Then come back here and post a link to the analysis it provides.
All this should normally take about 2 minutes.

And if that's all too hard for you, just get the .txt file for the flight record and attach it here and someone else can upload it for you.

Labroides Posted at 2016-11-9 12:49
Forget the surface pro for now.
The flight record is on your phone.
Go to http://www.phantomhelp.co ...

"Forget the surface pro for now.
The flight record is on your phone."

And to retrieve the information you need iTunes as per the Phantomhelp instructions. The phone is plugged into PC and flight record copied from iPhone via iTunes to desktop or wherever is convenient for upload.

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/ZXQRVQYDU8KHUGJ3F57V/The link to my flight record, please could anybody who has a chance to reveiw this give me some insight on how this doesnt explain a faulty aircraft. It doesnt say why or how but it does in my opinion show that it was not pilot error, the whole flight was in p gps mode...

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-10 00:43
http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/ZXQRVQYDU8KHUGJ3F57V/The link to my flight record, please could ...

OK ... I can see that you were flying in flat country with no obvious hills or obstacles to fly behind and lose signal or block the RTH path.

I see the problem that DJI have.
Your flight record just ends at 3:17 with the Phantom 245 ft up and 1378 feet northwest of your start point.
Up to that point, there's no indication that anything is wrong.
Whatever happened after that, isn't recorded.
That makes it very hard for DJI to say ... we can see that component XYZ malfunctioned, or anything else.
There's just no evidence to go on.

At the moment it's all blanks.
Are you able to give any details of what you observed to help fill in the blanks?
Did your screen go black, did it have any messages?
Even if you lose the app or tablet you still have full control while you are in signal range.
Did you attempt to initiate RTH?
If you didn't the Phantom was probably hovering, waiting for you to give it orders.
Without any control input it would hover until the battery gets low.

To answer the question you initially asked: what more proof do DJI need?
DJI would need some proof and at the moment, there just isn't any.
Without evidence, they can't do much.

Labroides Posted at 2016-11-9 08:05
OK ... I can see that you were flying in flat country with no obvious hills or obstacles to fly be ...

it was a red light moving towards home point, I was controlling the craft and the last 6 or 7 sec of the flight i began to ascend thats when the controller screen said lost signal and right about then my roomate and i looked up to see a red light falling from the sky.

Labroides Posted at 2016-11-9 08:05
OK ... I can see that you were flying in flat country with no obvious hills or obstacles to fly be ...

the aircraft is in the pond that is about 35 to 40 feet in front of where the flight path ends, i cant recover the craft and even if i could its still going tobe in a million peices. my problem is I havewaitred patiently and have provided everything i could for dji, I have spent a lot of money on my dji products and so i would expect that  they would be more accomodating than they have been. It would be almost impossible to set this up...

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-10 01:15
the aircraft is in the pond that is about 35 to 40 feet in front of where the flight path ends, i  ...

If you saw it falling soon after losing signal it could well be in that pond.
But the reason it fell from the air is the mystery.
Usually the flight record will show evidence of a hardware error with things like motors revving hard, compass showing the Phantom tumbling etc.
But in this case, there's nothing.
The most logical explanation of loss of signal and loss of power would be the battery being dislodged, either through not being properly locked in or a mid-air collision with another drone or a large bird.
There's nothing there to point to any operator error.
And there's nothing to point to a malfunction of the DJI product either.
There's just a lot of nothing.

As you have said there is not a lot to go by, but if he see a red light falling it wasnt a bad battery connection, which unless something knocked it out the sky says that it was a drone malfunction surely?

Also this is where good an bad customer service shows, if DJI cant find  the op is at fault then surely they have to take it as a drone malfunction and replace it.  

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-9 14:15
the aircraft is in the pond that is about 35 to 40 feet in front of where the flight path ends, i  ...

Is it completely impossible to recover aircraft, that could provide valuable information as to whether something failed or not ?

Did you have a gimbal guard fitted ?

Bird strike is one probable cause. But as said previously nothing in record either way.

Are you able to view the original footage in the DJI go app. Thats the video evidence that my crash was not pilot error. we can talk you through where it is if you dont know.

spalding1968 Posted at 2016-11-10 00:51
Are you able to view the original footage in the DJI go app. Thats the video evidence that my crash  ...

I have been trying to find out if that was even in existence, I know that the flight was being recorded and there was a mini sd card in the craft but was under the impression that on a server somewhere that footage did exist. Dji surely has access to those records and would have looked at them during the claims process? i guess not, im sure it would benefit me. but yes, please tell me where to fin that footage!

Aardvark Posted at 2016-11-10 00:11
Is it completely impossible to recover aircraft, that could provide valuable information as to whet ...

yes it seems nearly impossible to retrieve the craft from the pond, it seems like it may be quite deep. however I am feeling like going to great lengths to resolve this and before it gets too cold maybe i ought to try to assemble a dive team and call a couple of my crazy friends to see what can be done. I just dont want them to say oops WATER DAMAGE... Deals off NOT UNDER WARRANTY! like many of cell phones ive had in the past!

dazzlers82 Posted at 2016-11-10 02:39
As you have said there is not a lot to go by, but if he see a red light falling it wasnt a bad batte ...

And if there was enough power to light the LEDs, there would have been enough power to record sensor information and send it back.
But there is no data recording the fall.
DJI have nothing that would tell them whether the Phantom was plucked from the air by an eagle, fell because the battery was loose or failed because of a hardware problem.

on DJI go app startup page should have an EDITOR button between Equipment and Skypixel, if its anything like mine. You can view your flights from there as long as you have Video caching enabled, which i think is default, in general settings. There may be other ways but thats what i use. Also, with my crash, the micro sd in the drone had an unreadable file as the crash caused the battery to pop out before the file could be closed so all i had was the cached video. If you can find the drone I'm sure they will replace it under warranty cos they will be able to hook it up to their analysis computers and get loads of data. The longer you leave it in the water the more chance of the data being lost. Mobile phones dont drop themselves into water due to a fault but drones can. I'd really try to recover yours to give you a better chance or try to locate your cached video clip. My crash happened 5 minutes after i had a nice flight along a river so i was very lucky it didnt drop out the sky then.

Igotamoneytree! Posted at 2016-11-10 05:17
I have been trying to find out if that was even in existence, I know that the flight was being rec ...

So far DJI only have the same flight data we've looked at here.
The Phantom doesn't beam back a separate stream to DJI.
If you were recording video, that is on the SD card in the camera (but if power was cut while recording, it will not have an end of file marker.
Even with proper data recovery, it would not have the last few seconds.
But that may not matter because video will not show the telemetry that is important in investigating an incident.
The other SD card built-in to the Phantom has even more telemetry than is stored in the app.

Price up some wet suits, snorkels and gifts for friends.

You could also try fishing with a treble hook on a 1 oz weight. Got a kayak/canoe? If it were me, I would have already been trying to retrieve it from day 1.
The cached video will be on your device that you were flying with. You can play it back there. Open the Go App,  Click on the icon on the upper left and it will open a list of your flights. Click the top one (should be your last flight) and play it back.

spalding1968 Posted at 2016-11-9 21:37
Price up some wet suits, snorkels and gifts for friends.

"34# Price up some wet suits, snorkels and gifts for friends."

Pfffttttt !

Or do it on the cheap, four pairs swimming trunks and a packet of peanuts

thanks everyone for your advice and feedback, i am a bit slow sometimes but thanks for bearing with me, i will update when i find the module!

dazzlers82 Posted at 2016-11-9 09:39
As you have said there is not a lot to go by, but if he see a red light falling it wasnt a bad batte ...

I agree with you, bad customer relations... I look at it like this; Even if aliens from outer space abducted my drone Dji made the return to home feature in the go app and p-gps mode so that if this happens that the drone will run as directly as its can back to the drones home where its safe and quiet. How does everyone not see how much of an injustice this is? Because I trust in my capabilities as a drone/phantom 4 operator I decided not to purchase the dji care plan, but when your drone does what mine did and you have done everything you can think of next to trolling the bottom of the cold, murky, snake infested water of the pond where it most likely is calling home, then you might lose some faith in Dji like I have at. This point. Just sayin

I know your pain. I was lucky to have something to return to DJI for analysis. I think the problem is that there is nothing to prevent someone who, through pilot error, crashes their drone and claims it's a fly-away or a fell-from-the-sky. Then contacts DJI for a replacement under warranty. I'm not in any way saying that's what you did, just pointing out that this would happen. The fact that your flight logs just stop means that  something shut down your drone in mid air and thats what i would be pushing to DJI support if retrieving it isnt an option. Im surprised that a DJI admin on this forum hasnt got their teeth into this cos they are really good at helping us out.
and try uploading your logs to https://healthydrones.com/ cos i think they offer better info than phantomhelp. Ive just used your logs there and it shows that there were signal errors.

	Flight time	Altitude	Home Distance	Minor Signal Errors
A	[url=]00m 30s[/url]	201.1 ft	629 ft	14
B	[url=]01m 00s[/url]	206.7 ft	1,588 ft	27
C	[url=]01m 30s[/url]	207.3 ft	2,485 ft	38
D	[url=]02m 00s[/url]	210.0 ft	3,144 ft	103
E	[url=]02m 30s[/url]	210.3 ft	2,527 ft	93
F	[url=]03m 00s[/url]	209.0 ft	1,756 ft	87

and what is the building to the north west of you. It looks like it has a helipad. is there any chance they jammed you. Im assuming your RC and display device hadnt shut down during the flight cos that would explain the abrupt end of data.

spalding1968 Posted at 2016-11-10 20:13
I know your pain. I was lucky to have something to return to DJI for analysis. I think the problem i ...

"try uploading your logs to https://healthydrones.com/ cos i think they offer better info than phantomhelp"

You must be joking?
HD only gives a brief summary without the level of detail necessary to do any kind of investigation.
A few signal errors don't make a Phantom fall from the sky.
At worst the interference might block control signal for a few seconds which would cause the Phantom to hover in place.