Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard landed.

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Greetings fellow pilots. I am rather sad to make this my first post as I have been reading the forums for the past two weeks since I bought a new Phantom Vision+ V3.

I will cut my story short. Today I have made my ~20th flight. Took all the pre-flight procedures. Calibrated the compass, Full GPS signal, IMU Calibrated. Props Checked, Gimbal functional and all connections were OK. So I took off to fly for about 13 minutes near a pier. It flied normally and there were no collisions of any kind. I landed it safe and neatly. After a minute, without touching the Phantom, I decided to burn a few more minutes of the battery by practicing stable hovering over a few feet height without it drifting off. After a minute or less, One white capped propeller FLIED OFF. It just spun itself off vertically and then the Phanton flipped itself and landed upside down on concrete floor from around 4 feet tall. I was SHOCKED.

The motors were still spinning so I quickly executed CSC. One side of the landing gear broke off. Props were OK. Three propellers remained on. Gimbal was OK thank God. The immediate thought came to my mind was what if it was way up or over the waters? OMG. The props never came off not even once! It just dropped like a rock.

I have read a few threads regarding Phantom 2 failures. Some fellow pilots seem to have encountered this. Since the props are self tightening and they were tightened properly before flight. Was it about the ESC failure that caused the motor to spin backwards so the blade just spun itself off? I am still horrified. I had a Parrot Bebop and one motor failed me and it dropped like a rock but it was only around 3 feel high at that time. I was able to return it to Apple Store and bought the Phantom 2. I am still new to the Phantom but I am a mechanical engineer(wished I am an electrical). I follow the guides, rules and treated the Phantom as a flying instrument but not a toy. I am still puzzled. Going to bring it to a service center tomorrow.

Now that particular motor won't start up properly. It makes a BEEP BEEP BEEP sound while the other 3 motors seem to be fine. I believe the ESC is responsible for this.

Did this happen to anyone else? Is there any tips you guys can share with me?

Thanks guys *sob* :cry:
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

That is scary very bad luck.
Does the motor feel ok when you turn it? Maybe a bearing seized? I swopped out a brand new V3 because the bearing felt rough.
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

Predtek said:
Greetings fellow pilots. I am rather sad to make this my first post as I have been reading the forums for the past two weeks since I bought a new Phantom Vision+ V3.

I will cut my story short. Today I have made my ~20th flight. Took all the pre-flight procedures. Calibrated the compass, Full GPS signal, IMU Calibrated. Props Checked, Gimbal functional and all connections were OK. So I took off to fly for about 13 minutes near a pier. It flied normally and there were no collisions of any kind. I landed it safe and neatly. After a minute, without touching the Phantom, I decided to burn a few more minutes of the battery by practicing stable hovering over a few feet height without it drifting off. After a minute or less, One white capped propeller FLIED OFF. It just spun itself off vertically and then the Phanton flipped itself and landed upside down on concrete floor from around 4 feet tall. I was SHOCKED.

The motors were still spinning so I quickly executed CSC. One side of the landing gear broke off. Props were OK. Three propellers remained on. Gimbal was OK thank God. The immediate thought came to my mind was what if it was way up or over the waters? OMG. The props never came off not even once! It just dropped like a rock.

I have read a few threads regarding Phantom 2 failures. Some fellow pilots seem to have encountered this. Since the props are self tightening and they were tightened properly before flight. Was it about the ESC failure that caused the motor to spin backwards so the blade just spun itself off? I am still horrified. I had a Parrot Bebop and one motor failed me and it dropped like a rock but it was only around 3 feel high at that time. I was able to return it to Apple Store and bought the Phantom 2. I am still new to the Phantom but I am a mechanical engineer(wished I am an electrical). I follow the guides, rules and treated the Phantom as a flying instrument but not a toy. I am still puzzled. Going to bring it to a service center tomorrow.

Now that particular motor won't start up properly. It makes a BEEP BEEP BEEP sound while the other 3 motors seem to be fine. I believe the ESC is responsible for this.

Did this happen to anyone else? Is there any tips you guys can share with me?

Thanks guys *sob* :cry:

I would agree it is most likely an ESC. That is the only reason I can think of that would cause a prop to spin off other than the prop itself cracking around the screw thread which I have never heard of. Have you inspected your ESCs previously? Is this a V3 and did it have ESC 2.1 boards?
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

There are some props that dont actually spin onto the motor shaft correctly, due to a bad width on the inside, you can tell by spinning it on and then looking at the motor from the side and seeing if the prop is sat fully down on the motor shaft.
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

Make sure you check the plug to the ESC on the motor that isn't working I had a very similar situation and when I looked at it it turned out that the plug just wasn't fully engaged in the Esc. I wouldn't be surprised if what happened was your motor stopped because the plug was loose there for cutting the engine which resulted in spinning the prop off.
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

If that motor/ESC is making the repeating beeps, then that means that it isn't getting a control signal from the Naza FC.
You need to check the thinner cable going to the ESC and its connection at both ends.
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

The exact same thing has happened to me a few weeks ago. I was filming near a small waterfall and on my third flight on the day (3rd batteries), I took off and hover for a few seconds then suddenly one of the props flew off and the Phantom did a flip and crashed down. Luckily the bystanders were not right below it at that moment. I tried to look for the prop that flew away on the rocky beach but could never found it. One of the motors were kind of stuck with some sands in but after I got the sands out at home it still stuttered. I took it to the shop thinking the motor need to be replaced but the shop said it's more likely the ESC was the problem. They kept it for a day to check it and told me they had replaced the ESC. If asked if the ESC could had caused the prop to fly off they kind of said possible but not willing to give any detail.

Maybe they know this can happen any time? Now I fly with the fear that it can happen any time again.

You can see from this video at the end is the 3rd flight when it happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO4XZOx2IEE
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

There have been a few threads before reporting this - it is tempting to imagine the prop was somehow not spun on properly and the user is often hard pressed to be 100% certain themselves!

If a motor stops almost instantly then very likely a prop can spin off under its own momentum.
Losing the prop is not why it fell to the ground though - the result of a motor stopping would be the same even if you made them super tight or somehow locked the prop on - it is going down - fast.
 
Re: Phantom 2 V+ One Propeller flied off midflight. Hard lan

99% cause would be the motor to stop abruptly and the momentum of the prop would spin it off. Probably an esc issue.
 

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