DJI phantom 3 crash while on pix4d mission

PIX4Dcapture PIX4Dcapture Questions/Troubleshooting
1

This week was a shock. Halfway through the flight plan of a 3d mission my phantom 3 standard fell like a rock. 

Running pix4d the same way i had numerous times on a p3 professional and twice with the same phantom 3 standard that day with centrepoint mode on i had not expected this. The only difference from other missions was not have centre mode on, however i do not see why that would even matter.

The crash occurred suddenly. Right when the long black paths were complete and the drone turned to initiate the crossway pattern “white in app” the drone suddenly rolled sideways and tumble to the ground.

The gimbal arm connecting the camera to the base has been sheared clean off.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByXoFBRdUjSWbDljRlpNVkNhTTMxUWVDTWh1bGlpVEc3anNz

The log file is attatched in the  drive link.

you can see the crash and complete loss of orientation occurs right when the waypoint changes from 6 to 7, with pitch roll and camera orientation goes haywire.

It was not a significantly windy day with no precipitation and during a sunny midday.

I am very sad :(.

How can I trust this app again? It seems to be the most functional app there is but this crash was so sudden it simply left no seconf to take over manual control as it suddenly flipped the drone…

2

Further information i have reviewed the last images. And the drone did also not record any images just before the problems happened. There was also a brief moment in the log where drone yaws wildly and drops 5m then regains altitude only to start tumbling. If it were a pysical problem or loss of gps etc you would expect roll or pitch to go or in case of gps just the drone to drift. But the drone was yawing turning almost complete 180 and spinning. Bizzare behavioir.

3

Hi Cornelius,

Thank you for contacting us.

We are sincerely sorry to hear about this bad experience. The drone is actually responsible for not destroying itself and going out of control. Pix4Dcapture tells the drone where to go, when to take pictures, and when it does not work this is due to issues on the Pix4Dcapture side. However, our app is not responsible when the drone crashes as we cannot give instructions that would override the safe behavior of the drone. When the situation becomes out of control, it is coming from the drone itself and a defect can have occurred in your case.

Normally taking over manual control should prevent incidents from happening. Were you able to take over manual control? Have you tried to tap  Abort  in Pix4Dcapture to interrupt the mission or to press the return-to-home (RTH) button?

If my understanding is correct, the drone motors did not stop, the drone just could not get stable anymore at one point which makes it fell on the ground, right?

Would it be possible to answer the following questions:

  • Do you confirm that the latest drone’s firmware and apps installed?
  • Can you precise, the date and hour of the crash so that we can investigate the logs?

In this particular case, I would maybe suggest you to contact DJI and send them your DJI flight logs:
[DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help

](DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help)Best,