So today did some awesome river flying. Phantom 3 got hooked up into some branches along the bank and flipped into 4 foot of water. It remained under water for 4 mins till I retrieved the bird. quickly disconnected the battery. I took it home ten min ride and took off propellers, took out sd card and screwed off camera lens. I ran a 85000 btu fan forced heater for two hours to dry out the unit. Constant hot air being forced over the copter constantly. After two hours I fired it up with the same battery when crashed, reset, the compass and took off. no physical damage to the bird except being under water. Been flying it for a half hour and no sign of malfunction what so ever. Whewww. So what to do now. It flys like normal.
I am concerned about future problems and can it be trusted at this point. I would like you thoughts. Any body been in my shoes. I am just glad to be airborne as this machine is three days old.  

Have not been there but good luck!!!  Awesome recovery.

Glad to hear you got it going again...several have drowned them before and recovered....
I would be concerned about any moisture they may still be in the bird itself, most would suggest to take the shell off and pack it in rice for a few days to remove any other moisture, but who knows, you may have got it all.

Corrosion after getting wet usually does not show up immediately.

Metal parts like connectors and plugs might cause poor connections in the future.

If you opened it up and added some dialectic grease to all the connectors it would help.

I'd expect it would be fine.  They'll get condensation inside anyway, when you bring it in the house in winter.

The LiPo battery has been under water for 4 minutes Hmm? Don't ever use that battery again and get a brand new battery. It can swell, malfunction, or even burst in mid air destroying the drone. It is already a miracle that your phantom can still fly.

Thanks for your thoughts... I still playing around with it and all seems good. Amazed. As far as the battery it concerned, yea well its an iffy thing I guess. I have fully discharged it and bringing it back to life. Its not showing any signs of problems. However one post stated it could blow up in the air. My be I should thank my lucky stars today and just toss the battery for good luck sake..
Also I am going to let her sit in rice overnight.

Understood Rebel, however the amount of heat I threw at it no is no way any moisture was missed. I got it hot to the touch but not enough to melt anything. I believe this is is the only way I saved it. Everyone got different options on this but rice sucking out moisture but I think takes to long. While it's doing it job all them electronic items are still wet and you said it for two weeks. 2 hrs we where dried out and smoken warm to the touch.  Any way all is good. Flew on three different battery  cycles tonight and could not be happier. I realize I got very lucky with it. Only thing that has failed it battery. Appears that one cell has quit working.

mjcontractorllc Posted at 2016-1-4 06:28
Understood Rebel, however the amount of heat I threw at it no is no way any moisture was missed. I g ...

I'd check your warranty status before you follow any advice about opening it up to check the connections etc - usually that means it's invalidated. Corrosion might be an issue lurking for the future, but you have made a lucky save right there, so it's all a bonus!

I would suggest opening it up and cleaning all the boards and components with a good electronic cleaner (aerosol type), as it is not the water that causes the damage but the impurities in the water ( minerals etc ) that may cause you a problem later. Having dried up all the water any minerals in the water will be left behind and many of these are conductive, if they find their way to any one of the surface mounted components they can easily short out one of the minute tracks or component legs causing malfunction.
Water is not a good conductor at all in it's distilled form and you may find that the area you took a dunk in may have a low conductive mineral content
Well done for getting it disconnected and dried so quickly, for peace of mind take the extra time and clean it up and you will probably never have issues with the bird.
There are a few YouTube videos showing how to clean laptops and mobile phones that have been in water, a lot of them are in the US and also offer their services.
Good luck
Safe flying

It's my understanding that he has no warranty left anyway.  There is apparently a moisture sensing marker inside on the board that will tell them it has been wet and automatically cancel warranty.

Pretty amazing. Just curious, have you ran your recent test flights through Healthy Drones to see any potential problems that can go undetected?

AG0N-Gary Posted at 2016-1-4 19:07
It's my understanding that he has no warranty left anyway.  There is apparently a moisture sensing m ...

I would agree with you. As I was blowing out the machine with air compressor, I was seeing what appeared to be a red dye being blown out of the bird, Also note that their is a small device glued to each battery in what I call the fin looking area. You can see a round dot which is the color white under normal conditions. The battery that I took swimming no longer works and also the white dot has turned red. This is their way of telling if it has gotten wet.
Bird is still flying .

gas.tube Posted at 2016-1-4 19:40
Pretty amazing. Just curious, have you ran your recent test flights through Healthy Drones to see an ...

No sir I have not. Bird is doing good and flying. I consider myself really, really, really lucky.... To date only thing I lost was a Battery. Appears to have shorted out one cell.