Phantom 4 Just Dropped From Sky

Phantom 4
1

Hi

A customer of mine said his P4 just randomly fell from the sky, while I know these drones have a way of just “dropping” I’ve managed to get the flight log and wanted your expert opinion on what actually happened so I can shed some light on the situation.

The logs are here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Thanks in advance, really appreciate your feedback.

2

While the drone appeared to be high enough to avoid any obstacles for the entire flight, the “VPS Altitude” column at the link above shows an obstacle beneath the drone for most of the flight (at all altitudes).

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Some notable things from the log:

  • The drone avoided an obstacle several times during the flight
  • At 4m 59.3s, the drone made impact with something while flying
  • The drone then began spinning in a circle (commonly seen when a prop is lost)
  • The log notes the lack of force and missing prop (confirming a lost prop)

This flight log is an Airdata CSV file, so I’m not certain it hasn’t been altered. If you uploaded the original TXT flight log file to Airdata and then to my log viewer, we can rule that possibility out.

3

As requested:

https://www.phantomhelp.com/logviewer/6TLILT1914F8FYBUN12NOC5O8YQ1XR0I

Thank you.

4

Thanks!

The original data is nearly the same after being processed by my log viewer.

I’m not quite sure what kind of obstacle the drone could have avoided at that altitude (in a seemingly wide open area). From looking at other nearby trees, it doesn’t seem like that could have been the obstacle – even though the drone was right at the tree line at the time.

Perhaps it lost a prop and that made it appear as if it impacted an obstacle. Whatever the case, the lost prop is what ultimately caused it to drop.