Took my Phantom 4 out this afternoon. Did my preflight checks, and all seemed good. I waited for the aircraft to warm up, and once it did, the DJI GO app told me that I couldn't take off because I was in a no fly zone. I didn't understand this warning because I had flown at this site multiple times before without issue. I restarted the Phantom, went through my checks again, and finally got Safe to Fly (GPS). I had 16 satellites. I manually checked the home point on the map, took off, hovered, flew back and forth to make sure my controls were working, and off I went. I was flying around 2,000 feet away from me when the aircraft lost signal. I patiently waited to regain signal. When the phantom was about 1700 feet from me, I regained signal and let the drone come back to me. When it got to about 1400 feet away from me, auto land was suddenly triggered. I hadn't done anything to trigger this, but didn't freak out yet. I tried to cancel the auto land procedure, and DJI go gave me a notification that the outlined had been canceled, but the drone continued to descend. Frantically, I tried to cancel auto land two more times, but to no avail. The drone crashed into some trees and I completely lost signal. I went to look for it, and found it lying face down in some mud. There was fog in the area. I know that was a bad idea but I was itching to get out and fly.
The damage looks pretty bad. There are two cracks in the shell near the motors and two cracks in the landing struts. Worst of all, the gimbal is tilted to one side and the camera is facing completely inward. Not sure if this is supposed to do this to protect the camera? The electronics look ok. Attempted to dry it off and will let it sit for a few days before attempting to power on. Battery was lying right next to the drone but had obviously come out. I believe this happened up in the trees, as the log cuts off while the drone is still 108 feet in the air. I will attach some pics.
My first question is why in the world would the drone have auto landed where it did. Why wasn't I able to cancel auto land? Any chance that the warranty covers this? The drone is less than six months old. Also, how do I upload my flight log? Do I do it off of DJI GO?
Based on the pictures, what how extensive do you think the damage is? How could I go about making repairs? Estimate cost?
Will answer any questions, just want to know what happened to my bird. Really appreciate any help I could get. Thanks guys.
The damage looks pretty bad. There are two cracks in the shell near the motors and two cracks in the landing struts. Worst of all, the gimbal is tilted to one side and the camera is facing completely inward. Not sure if this is supposed to do this to protect the camera? The electronics look ok. Attempted to dry it off and will let it sit for a few days before attempting to power on. Battery was lying right next to the drone but had obviously come out. I believe this happened up in the trees, as the log cuts off while the drone is still 108 feet in the air. I will attach some pics.
My first question is why in the world would the drone have auto landed where it did. Why wasn't I able to cancel auto land? Any chance that the warranty covers this? The drone is less than six months old. Also, how do I upload my flight log? Do I do it off of DJI GO?
Based on the pictures, what how extensive do you think the damage is? How could I go about making repairs? Estimate cost?
Will answer any questions, just want to know what happened to my bird. Really appreciate any help I could get. Thanks guys.
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