So a couple nights ago, I went out to my nearby football field at 11pm for some night footage. I unpack my Phantom 3 Advanced, set it all up, and take off. I fly for several minutes above the small town I live in. At this point I'm at 392ft high, and around 3000ft away in perfect reception. Footage is amazing, getting great stuff when I get hammered with two warnings simultaneously: 1- Motor Obstructed, 2- Low Altitude Mode (or something similar) engaged. Upon seeing this, I activate return to home immediately, and it flies straight over with no issue. I pull out a light and inspect every inch of the machine and find nothing abnormal. I look at the flight log to see when the warnings appeared, but what I see confuses me quite a bit. As the Phantom sees it, I had flown from North Georgia to the western coast of Africa! And it reached a quite impressive max height of 8600ft! So really, I'm just bewildered as to what might have caused this. I flew it around the field afterwards and the next morning, but no such errors appeared again.

Thats one hell of a trip on one battery

Did you check the kp index?   Could have been the cause.  I used to have weird stuff happen when that index was high.  I know make it part of my checklist before flying

And you're sure it never went to Africa?

I don't think it was a GPS problem as the altitude is taken from a barometer.  It sounds like maybe a bad circuit board somewhere, maybe a dry joint or whatever.

I'm not sure what a kp index is, so any info would be helpful. I got my drone from Amazon just a few days ago, so it originating in Africa isn't the most likely. Flew it again today without any problems (other than the pilot). Hoping it was a one time thing

Congratz! You just got the world record flight for a Phantom. Sync your log to the DJI Go app, and you will be the all time flight distance user!

thomasdavis83 Posted at 2016-3-9 09:04
I'm not sure what a kp index is, so any info would be helpful. I got my drone from Amazon just a few ...

Kp index affecting Phantoms and GPS is a much loved myth in the forums.
It has no real effect on your flying.
If the K index was high enough to affect your Phantom, you'd have a lot more to worry about.

The identical thing happened to me about a month ago. I was flying fine with no problems and I get the same 2 warning signs so I brought it back to land with no further issues. I mentioned this somewhere in this forum and Ken responded in some way but with no explanation. It showed my flight path from St. Louis all the way down to off the coast of South America however. This is too much of a coincidence as I'm sure both of us aren't the only ones this has happened to?  Would someone with DJI care to chime in and explain how this could happen?(No obstruction in the motor by the way)

" As the Phantom sees it, I had flown from North Georgia to the western coast of Africa!"

And would the location off west Africa happen to be somewhere on the equator and about zero degrees west?
00.000°N 000.000°W

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-3-8 17:09
Kp index affecting Phantoms and GPS is a much loved myth in the forums.
It has no real effect on y ...

You and other can keepmsaying that, but I won't risk flying in anything higher then kp6. University's have done studies that prove solar weather effects the accuracy of GPS.

mrGREEK360 Posted at 2016-3-9 12:37
You and other can keepmsaying that, but I won't risk flying in anything higher then kp6. Universit ...

Yes ... a severe solar storm has the potential to affect the accuracy of GPS.
But how much this might affect your Phantom is the question.
If your GPS position is 1 or 2 or 5 metres off (and that's what might happen is a very severe solar storm),
Your Phantom will still fly quite safely and you probably won't even notice.
At worst, your RTH might be a couple of metres away from where it would otherwise be.

There's a huge difference between might affect and .. will cause serious problems.

Just checked the flight record mapping and compared it to a world map. The end point does seem to be directly on 00.000°N 000.000°W, just under the western curve of Africa

Strange one... I wonder if you flew the simulator the day before? The place in the western coast of India is 0' longitude  0' latitude ...

This is a screenshot of the flight log afterwards. Never even opened the simulation fight

labroides@yahoo Posted at 2016-3-9 08:09
Kp index affecting Phantoms and GPS is a much loved myth in the forums.
It has no real effect on y ...

Exactly what he said.
If there is not some undocumented weird quirk of the flight controller, that makes it particulary susceptible to "wigging out" from small variations in GPS location, kP is not a legitimate cause for issues with your Phantom.

That does it!!  I'm calling the FAA!!

But it's funny it did not show a speed of several thousand mph to explain the distance covered.  You would think it would realize that these numbers are impossible.  But maybe it did.  That's why the warnings.