Hi all,

Bought a new Phantom 4 Pro + today, and on my second flight, I believe a had a catastrophic battery failure, which resulted in the drone falling into the water near my jetty. Has this happened to anyone else, or is it even capable of occurring given the number of fail safe options that are part of the drone itself. For clarification, I have a Mavic Pro, hence he user platform is near identical, and I am not a novice flyer, this was definately not a user fault issue.

The battery warning came on and literally within 10 seconds, after it automatically enabled its return to home feature, the drone disconnected and fell into the ocean.

Any help with this would be appreciated, have uploaded a video on YouTube hoping for advice on how to proceed, and more importantly, why this occurred.

Thanks in advance

Dave

Really sorry for your experience. I would recommend you contact our support and start a case: http://www.dji.com/support. Please provide the flight record for further analysis. Thanks for your support.

You could also upload your log to the phantomhelp page and post the link, if you wanted.  The membership could take a look and give opinions.

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

Sorry for your loss

Thanks for the comments. Given I am new to this particular drone type, I only just found the flight log as you suggested. It shows exactly what I presumed was the case, the battery pretty much "capitulates"..... loses 15% power within a matter of seconds, return to home mode was set at 20% as we have never travelled any more then 1km from where we are flying

So what exactly triggered the RTH? How far out were you? How about wind conditions? Your log would definitely help explain. Upload to phantomhelp and post the link back here.

Return to home was triggered by the battery reaching 20% mark on the BDI, as we set it to be. For whatever reason, I can't upload the log. I have videoed the footage, and forwarded it to DJI as they have requested. I am actually in the battery business, and have never personally seen a percentage drop of suck magnitude in any given application that I have been involved in. Absolutely the battery at fault for what I can gather. Wind was ok, height was 120metres, and distance from home only 88 metres when this occurred. Sorry I can't shed more light at this time, is there any way I can upload the video to the comments section of this forum ?

xxcoopxx Posted at 2017-11-15 05:52
Return to home was triggered by the battery reaching 20% mark on the BDI, as we set it to be. For whatever reason, I can't upload the log. I have videoed the footage, and forwarded it to DJI as they have requested. I am actually in the battery business, and have never personally seen a percentage drop of suck magnitude in any given application that I have been involved in. Absolutely the battery at fault for what I can gather. Wind was ok, height was 120metres, and distance from home only 88 metres when this occurred. Sorry I can't shed more light at this time, is there any way I can upload the video to the comments section of this forum ?

You can upload your video on youtube or dropbox and post the link here.

xxcoopxx Posted at 2017-11-15 05:25
Thanks for the comments. Given I am new to this particular drone type, I only just found the flight log as you suggested. It shows exactly what I presumed was the case, the battery pretty much "capitulates"..... loses 15% power within a matter of seconds, return to home mode was set at 20% as we have never travelled any more then 1km from where we are flying

I'm sorry but I can't find much in what you've said that's any help in determining what went wrong.
Don't waste effort on video, it won't explain what was going on in the Phantom.
Recorded flight data is what's needed.

If you go to http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet and come back and post a link to the report it provides and someone might be able to analyse it and give you an understanding of the cause of the incident.

When the drone crashed into the water was it 60 feet or less from the controller?

Ouch thats an expensive crash, I am sorry that it happened. Like the comments below please post the flight data and hope we can understand what happened.

Sorry for your loss, i know the frustration, and can confirm all sorts of random unexplained things happens with this model now and then, speaking from personal experience owning two P4P, and all the previous models.
Where is the link to your video?
Did it drop like a stone, or slowly in a steady phase? Other strange irregular behavior on the way down?
Like other suggested, we can get more info from the log when we see it.

Was the battery at 100% or something like that at start up?

Sounds like the battery was not fully locked in. Just a thought

I had same issue kind of put a fresh battery in took it up and it just shut down. The drone is at DJI getting repaired now and they said it was a total power failure from a manufacturer defect. Good luck

I just had something similar happen: https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/PIOTMBXEKTIIK1H56Q5X/  And final video… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP5UcG02DKU Catastrophic failure at 3:46

99.0% the prop came off.   You can see it when you slow the video down to 0.25 towards the end of 3:46.

Something appears in the bottom middle but then when it starts to rotate at the bottom middle something white, looks like the prop.

That right there is a very good EYE.

I watched and could be......

AntDX316 Posted at 10-1 19:21
99.0% the prop came off.   You can see it when you slow the video down to 0.25 towards the end of 3:46.

Something appears in the bottom middle but then when it starts to rotate at the bottom middle something white, looks like the prop.

Inclined to agree, having watched it over and over at that point, i can see, for the most part, a complete prop, the distinct definition of the shape of the v2 prop is shown and sad to say, it appears to be the full complete prop therefore its unlikely to be a manufacturing issue but a pilot error, namely not triple checking the props fitment (been there myself, never again), one sure way is to make sure the gap underneath between roto hub and motor is the exact same, another way is to physically to to remove the prop without any pushing down, another is to push down unlock and lock again paying attention to the return springing back at your fingers, not spring back means not seated properly, a bit late for you now but i do a combination of all the methods with 2-3 tries with the trying to remove without pushing down, once when first attached, another when pick it up to place on the mat, another when i start talking and not concentrating lol and 1 more when its on the mat, again, no help to you now good to know when you get ya next one..

Bashy,  good work flow.   Distractions mean skipped steps in the work flow.

Props checks are critical to flying without incident.   As is battery seating, Gps, sensors, HD etc.....

Randy