Drone crash

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So I was outside flying about 50 ft orbit (poi), clear of any trees, powerlines, ect. Look up at my p3s and it flipped upside down and crashed upside down. Gimbal snapped, snapping the ribbon cable. All the props broke. It came down with some speed. The camera apparently hit so hard that the sd card pushed in from hitting the bottom of the drone, bending it so it is unusable.
Turns out one of my prop motors froze causing an instant imbalance while orbiting. It's only 2 months old. Sending it in for warranty work.
 
Ouch!! that sounds pretty scary to witness! hope you can get it fixed :)
 
Have you updated the firmware lately? I heard of this happening to another pilot a few days ago after updating to the latest firmware last Friday.


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Glen,
I had something similar happen yesterday flying my p3s. Flew fine for 4 minutes and then fell straight down out of the sky. Camera snapped off, bracket for that broke. I hadn't flown it since I updated the firmware on Friday. Where are you sending it for warranty work? My p3s is only 2 weeks old. I purchased it on 3/29. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
Hyper, I updated it this past weekend. It was the latest version.
 
I had the same thing happen 3 weeks ago to me, just dropped out of the sky for no good reason. Mine thankfully landed in a tree so it actually suffered no damage other than a bent motor axle. The reason for the fall however, was a ESC failure which means a new main board was needed, off to the repair center! Got mine back this weekend to see they changed the motor and fixed nothing else. I have expressed my anger to DJI.
I wish you the best of luck with your repair. Hopefully you don't get the same lazy technician that I had who didn't even do a test flight with it.
 
That sucks. Mine is beyond repair. Cracked shell ( even Cracked on the inside, You can hear broken plastic rattling around), motor locked up, and gimbal snapped. In the automotive world that would rate as a total loss lol.
 
No, my crash was due to 1 prop motor locked up and the other 3 kept spinning. Then it flipped upside down and shot straight down to the ground. I should have taken pictures but I was panicked and depressed. Lol
 
Just called dji to check out my rma status. They informed me that the internal sd card that stores the flight records was damaged in the crash. And there were no flight records on it. Also, the flight that the crash occured had no flight record on my dji go app (android).
 
So it sounds like they are going to try to make you pay for it?


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The guy on the phone didn't insinuate that would be the case. None of the damage done was at my fault for sure. I loved my drone lol.
 
This makes me concerned, I am the proud owner of the phantom 3 of about a week now, crashed it once from 10 feet up at my own fault, but issues causing it to kill itself make me scared to send it up.


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Yeah, I feel the same way. It started up good on the ground, hovered About a minutes while I plotted my poi the started the orbit. About 25% of the way around it flipped and hit. Who would know if a motor is going to lock up. There is no way to know. Either fly and take the chance or don't fly. Lol that's scary. What happens a year later. I guess then I would get some insurance. But after 2 years of that you could have bought a new p3s. Dam if you do, dam if you don't.
 
As they say, crap happen
but the chance of a motor lock up is very rare
for it to happen to the same person twice will be remote for sure!

So don't worry. Just enjoy
 
Last edited:
A brushless motor physically can not lock up. (Unless there is a physical obstruction) which should have been heard if the case. And a electrical failure of the motor is also very rare due to its design. I would blame the brains


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We just crashed today but no where near as violent. Sorry to hear that. Hopefully DJI will honor you.
 
@Dal So I flew it wrong? Lol come on. A bird dropped something in the motor? It was either up right flying, or in the hard case. Nothing in between until the crash. Wonder why they sell replacement motors? Guess they are trying to get over on people.
 
@Dal So I flew it wrong? Lol come on. A bird dropped something in the motor? It was either up right flying, or in the hard case. Nothing in between until the crash. Wonder why they sell replacement motors? Guess they are trying to get over on people.

Not saying your motor or that motor controller didn't die. Just saying it doesn't happen often, most people fly quite high(over 100ft) for sure and a motor failure usually mean total destruction.

Dji have replacement part for everything. So?


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