Good afternoon, today unfortunately I had the bad experience of crashing my DJI phantom 4 pro. I made three flights. The first was good without any new addition to some mild gusts of wind that at times destabilized the drone a bit. The second flight was a flight finished in 3D that also had no problems. The third flight was the termination of the second flight, only the perimeter flight was missing and it was successfully completed until it started to descend to the Home / Starting Point, started to descend well and at 50 meters high (the flight was 90 meters) the P4P was destabilized and began a fall that, although it was not a free fall because the propellers still worked, the drone fell with force doing very sharp piling up to the ground, I tried to grab it but I did not achieve it completely , I prevented it from falling with all the force but the drone fell anyway and replaced a propeller protector, a propeller and also the gimbal, I still do not know if the drone suffered internal damage. I need to know why this happened, this was my number 6 flight with Dronedeploy and it did not happen to me, only once when the drone started to descend in the same way but it reached a point where it stabilized and managed to land No problem.
I send a photo of how the gimbal broke so that, if they can, tell me if you can buy a spare.
It would also help me to know how to do to know if the drone has internal damages, I did not want to turn it on because I still do not know if it is a good idea. I’m really sorry for what happened because for me it was a very important and high expense. I do not want to be discouraged but it is important to know what happened, why it happened and if it is common for this to happen. I attach photos and wait for instructions to know how to proceed. Thank you.
Atte. Clever Altamirano.
I’m very sorry to hear about your situation. It’s extremely difficult to hear about any incidents of this nature, but we assure you that your report is received very seriously at DroneDeploy.
We would first like to understand exactly what happened so that we can properly triage your case. I’m reaching out to you via email to further discuss what happened and how we can help.
Thank you,
Stephanie
There are a vast number of things that can cause this that are not pilot error, but are things that you can prepare for. Any time the aircraft is taking off or landing you must be very vigilant. Of course DroneDeploy has to manage the takeoff because starting in the air is very miss-and-go, but I always (every single time) take control of the bird when landing. Of course I am on construction terrain and rarely have a flat surface to land, but a program trying to land such a valuable piece of equipment and taking into account the wind, heat deflection and slightly unlevel surface is not appetizing to me. I actually prefer (even though other may not agree) letting it hover in front of me for a couple of seconds and “catching” it.
Thanks Michael for the advice. Unfortunately I am not an expert driver and I have not been able to practice much after the incident since the drone has the girlfriend to repair it DJI with the guarantee since it was determined that the problem was the software and not the pilot, it must be said that the gentlemen DJI were very responsible with my problem and they were very quick to solve it. I am writing to ask you how to do to have control of the Drone at the time of landing, I want to do the same as you do, catch it in the air before it reaches the ground. I do not really have much time to research or practice so it would help me a lot if you help me directly to explain what I have to do.Excuse me if you can not understand me well what happens is that I am Latin and I write to you with the help of a translator. Thank you.
On the P4P all you have to do is flip the toggle on the top right of the controller to S-mode. This breaks the autonomous mission. You can continue to manually fly in that mode, but be aware that you are in Sport mode so be prepared for the speed change. You can also switch back to P-mode afterward and continue to manually control the aircraft without DroneDeploy trying to take back over.
Oh, and the translator worked very well.