Diagnosing Crash Cause

[ghinson]

After 141 flights with a P3Pro that has worked great, today I had a crash into the ocean that I cannot explain.

Brief details: took off with full sats and home point set. No errors. Latest firmware. First flight on after DJI App Go app auto upgrade (to 2.4.1). Fresh battery. I hovered for about 20 seconds per usual. Flight appeared normal. Began to fly offshore and experienced sudden loss of power. P3P fell about 40m into 6-ft deep (and 40 degree!) water. I was only about 40m away, had clear LOS. Definitely no bird.

Took me about 2 hours but I was able to retrieve the Phantom. I have little hope that it will work again. All props in place and undamaged. Battery locked in place. Survived the fall without issues.

The flight log on the phone, via the app, shows the flight clearly and simply ends abruptly, no change in battery voltage, sticks still pointing up and away.

Will call DJI tomorrow and start the ball rolling. What can I be looking at now? Am I right to assume that after being submerged, I will not be able to get flight logs from the Phantom?

Here's the last frame available from the flight log:

 

[doctordrone]

After 141 flights with a P3Pro that has worked great, today I had a crash into the ocean that I cannot explain.

Brief details: took off with full sats and home point set. No errors. Latest firmware. First flight on after DJI App Go app auto upgrade (to 2.4.1). Fresh battery. I hovered for about 20 seconds per usual. Flight appeared normal. Began to fly offshore and experienced sudden loss of power. P3P fell about 40m into 6-ft deep (and 40 degree!) water. I was only about 40m away, had clear LOS. Definitely no bird.

Took me about 2 hours but I was able to retrieve the Phantom. I have little hope that it will work again. All props in place and undamaged. Battery locked in place. Survived the fall without issues.

The flight log on the phone, via the app, shows the flight clearly and simply ends abruptly, no change in battery voltage, sticks still pointing up and away.

Will call DJI tomorrow and start the ball rolling. What can I be looking at now? Am I right to assume that after being submerged, I will not be able to get flight logs from the Phantom?

Here's the last frame available from the flight log:

Ouch, I feel for you! That's the worst case scenario for all of us! Usually a battery disconnect, but you proved that wrong. I heard of a guy who's phantom took a dip in the ocean. He removed the battery and put the whole bird in clear bath water to remove the salt water. Then he removed it and blew out as much as he could with a compressed air to dry it. Then he put it in a Rubbermaid container and filled it with rice and left it for 3-4 days. He claimed oddly enough that it works like new. Of course there's no way to substantiate this story, but if there was no power to the bird when it dropped out of the sky, then there was nothing to short out... Worth a try and a prayer. But then you're still left with the question of why this happened.