I had an incident with my Phantom 4 back in March. I was coming in for a landing on a driveway, descending slowly using the left stick. About six inches above the pavement, the drone suddenly rolled toward its right side. The two right propellers hit the pavement and disintegrated, and the thrust from the left motors forced the drone onto the ground upside down. I quickly performed an emergency shut off to kill the motors. Fortunately, the only damage I could identify besides three broken propellers was just cosmetic - scuffs and scrapes on the front right motor and to my FAA registration number label. After turning the drone off and back on, I didn't get any errors. After I replaced the three broken propellers, I flew it again briefly with no issues.

However, something had happened the day before that seemed connected to the event. While landing the drone after the previous day's flight, I noticed that the motors cut off almost immediately after the struts touching the ground. I use the left stick down procedure to shut the motors off, which takes three seconds to fully implement. I only move the left stick all the way down once the drone is on the ground, so it's not as though I had been holding the left stick down all the way before it touched down. What both events have in common is that following each event, I looked down at my screen to see an ESC error. I did not see when these warnings first appeared on screen because I was focused on watching the drone at the time. After turning the drone off and on again, the error message did not return.

I sent the Phantom 4 to Drone Nerds for service, but they could not identify what happened or find anything wrong with it.  Dozens of flights later, and I haven't had another issue with it.

Does anyone have any idea what might have happened?  One thing I've wondered about the event was, if it had happened at a much higher altitude, would it have been able to recover, or would it have crashed?

Dirty or obstructed downward sensor? Barometer issue? Controller calibration? Not sure man, maybe post the log if you have it as well as some control logs of the bird now just to be sure.

Aloha Wolf,

     Was the driveway concrete?  Do you have access to a metal detector?  Concrete driveways have rebar in them and the metal can create problems with orientation, thus the abrupt roll to the right.  If the driveway is asphalt, all bets are off!

     Now the ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) issue is interesting, but pretty much outside my experience.  Others will be able to help you with that one.  The roll would be a result of input from the ESC and the quick shut-off would be a result of input from the ESC.  But that is all I can surmise and the message indicates that there was an issue.  As calls4u2 says, if you still have the flight log, it will have a lot more information.

     Hope this helps!

Aloha and Drone On!

Cetacean Posted at 2017-9-1 01:47
Aloha Wolf,

     Was the driveway concrete?  Do you have access to a metal detector?  Concrete driveways have rebar in them and the metal can create problems with orientation, thus the abrupt roll to the right.  If the driveway is asphalt, all bets are off!

Yes, the driveway was concrete.  It was at a relative's now former house, so I'm unsure if it had rebar within it.

I don't know about the flight logs.  How would I access them to check?  I'd like to avoid having the Phantom 4 online at the moment, since it's using an older firmware version that isn't giving me any issues.

TN Lone Wolf Posted at 2017-9-1 09:56
Yes, the driveway was concrete.  It was at a relative's now former house, so I'm unsure if it had rebar within it.

I don't know about the flight logs.  How would I access them to check?  I'd like to avoid having the Phantom 4 online at the moment, since it's using an older firmware version that isn't giving me any issues.

Aloha Wolf,

     Building codes require rebar in concrete driveways, also screens according to designs.  These can easily interfere with orientation as noted above.

     The technology we fly is very sensitive to interference.  Urban flying is the most risky due to all the electromagnetic energy and metal.  If you suspect metal in any structure, plan for interference.  Electrical wires can be even worse.

     I have electrical power transmission cables along the road my house is on.  But due to the enormous trees that like to drop 10 ton branches on beautiful days, the electric company changed them to weight bearing cables for 8 tons.  Three lines, 24 tons, and fortunately it is all covered in rubber so very little interference.  But when I leave the rubber covered cable area under the trees, I forget (too often) about the interference and then problems start until I am able to exit the area.  If I stay a hundred feet or so away, it is much safer.

     Hope this helps!

Aloha and Drone On!

this happend to me on my first ever flight with a DJI I then saw it was the settings and changeing a few fixed it all Hmm

Sorry for the crash, have you contacted the DJI Support at that time? If yes, have you provided the flight log and flight data to them?

DJI Diana Posted at 2017-9-1 18:39
Sorry for the crash, have you contacted the DJI Support at that time? If yes, have you provided the flight log and flight data to them?

No, I didn't contact DJI directly.  Just Drone Nerds.

TN Lone Wolf Posted at 2017-9-1 18:40
No, I didn't contact DJI directly.  Just Drone Nerds.

I would recommend you to contact our Support Team and send it in for fully diagnosis: http://www.dji.com/support. Please post your case number once you got it, we will keep follow up for you.