P4P+ Flyaway/Crash DAT help

Phantom 4 Pro/Adv
1

Had our P4P+ fly over a warehouse fire for a full battery, and on the 2nd battery about 4 minutes in, it lost connection with the controller. I waited about 30 seconds to reconnect, which it didn’t and power cycled the remote which didn’t reconnect, either. Waited for the drone to RTH but it stayed in the same area…(about 100’ altitude, 300’ from PIC) until it started flying around on its own. I first thought it was “deciding” if it wanted to RTH as it would start to gain altitude then drop back down. After a bit, it started some random lateral movements as well. To me it seemed as though someone/something else was controlling it.

After a few minutes, I walked over to where it was flying and was able to get about 30’ away and still would not reconnect. The P4P+ still was flying around somewhat erratically; lowering altitude and then gaining it. It finally decided to turn towards the West and start flying off - not drifting, but didn’t seem at full speed. At about 2000 ft(?) away it looked like it was lowering in altitude and figured it was coming down. I drove over to the area (near a recycling plant) and tried to find it, without avail. After about 45 minutes I was contacted that the drone (pieces) were found back near the location it had lost it’s signal. It had both landing gear and gimbal sheared off and broken propellers. I have NO IDEA what it was doing…

There was a media drone (unknown make/model) reported operating in the same area, but he said as soon as he saw me flying ours, he landed his - I never saw him flying. He was located in the area which the drone seemed to be headed when it flew off… but he never saw/heard it.

We normally keep the lost connection setting as RTH, but I cannot enter the settings on the remote to double check. The flight log on the controller looks normal up until the end. I pulled the flight data (what I believe is from the flight) from the P4P+ with Assistant 2 but am having trouble deciphering it with DJI’s viewer. Since it is a DAT file (198MB), I tried uploading it to AirData but it doesn’t come up with any data. But the previous DAT (78MB) file has all the info up until the disconnect…

The MP4 file is damaged and I’m working on getting it repaired to see the footage…

I’d like to do/get all I can before boxing it up to DJI - its out of warranty.

2

00 PM
00 PM4756×2644 2.33 MB

3

You can do 2 things here. Upload your .txt flight log to this link and share a link back here:
Log Viewer

And/or upload your device .dat file to a sharable site such as dropbox, google drive etc…and share a link back here to the file. The .dat will be more comprehensive. Airdata, nor the Viewer can decode the .dat files. However, an external tool can. We can let you know what the data says.

4

DAT files:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=108-iC5pyTnVXVo2T7GoQfLinRcmzXOUq
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r524XmV-A-PyqoSgE9Tik7G7L5cEPCSP

5

@ffdowns FLY423 is incomplete. FLY424 is not a flight. If you can upload the .txt file from your device to the link provided above and share a link back here, we can tell you which corresponding .dat you need for the flight info. Or you can fully share the Airdata link.

6

The txt file from the controller only shows data up until the disconnect… there isn’t any data about what it was doing after the loss link and was flying around until the crash. FLY423 was the flight up until the loss link. FLY424 seems to show a timestamp which would line up with activity just after the loss link.

Here is the FLY423 airdata link: Dec 2nd, 2019 01:23PM | General / Overview | DJI DAT log 1.15 | United States | Airdata UAV
Fly424 airdata link: Dec 2nd, 2019 11:50PM | General / Overview | DJI DAT log 1.15 | Airdata UAV (only thing that came across is the log duration of 12m 26s)

Still working on getting the MP4 repaired

7

That makes sense from the data. There is nothing unusual prior to signal loss. I am assuming that this is the aircraft .dat file and not the device .dat. If so, there is really no additional data to go by.

8

@ffdowns What app were you flying with. There is no info.