Help diagnosing mystery crash

darran · Feb 12, 2023

I had a mystery crash on a flight the other day. It was a flight plan flight and as it was going about the plan I could tell it was going off course and becoming erratic by the video feed. I tried to land it safely, but by the time I was aware of the issue it had already crashed. Does anyone know what might have caused this. I have included the flight screenshots and also a video of the end of the flight including the crash. I have done this flight plan many times without any problems.

It was higher wind today though...

At the very end you can see it going over a road, but I never have flight paths over the road. The elevation also keeps going crazy at the end. Could high winds cause this behavior?

Here are the last moments of the flight.

Jagerbomb52 · Feb 12, 2023

Without seeing the video my guess would be a broken prop. The erratic flight near the end in my opinion is cause by a broken prop causing it to venture off course and over the road. I have had this happen to me so I am just suggesting that was the problem.

darran · Feb 13, 2023

Jagerbomb52 said:
Without seeing the video my guess would be a broken prop. The erratic flight near the end in my opinion is cause by a broken prop causing it to venture off course and over the road. I have had this happen to me so I am just suggesting that was the problem.

added the video to the original post

speagles2 · Feb 15, 2023

darran said:
I had a mystery crash on a flight the other day. It was a flight plan flight and as it was going about the plan I could tell it was going off course and becoming erratic by the video feed. I tried to land it safely, but by the time I was aware of the issue it had already crashed. Does anyone know what might have caused this. I have included the flight screenshots and also a video of the end of the flight including the crash. I have done this flight plan many times without any problems.

It was higher wind today though...

At the very end you can see it going over a road, but I never have flight paths over the road. The elevation also keeps going crazy at the end. Could high winds cause this behavior?

View attachment 6217 View attachment 6218

Here are the last moments of the flight.

Very strange. I'd assumed a broken prop also, but the fact that it seemed to recover briefly to stable flight a couple of times, and even begin climbing again, suggests otherwise. It certainly seemed wildly out of control at times. Maybe one or more motors intermittently cutting out? Any evidence from the crashed drone when you found it? (all props attached, can you power it up and do all 4 motors run, etc?)

darran · Feb 15, 2023

speagles2 said:
Very strange. I'd assumed a broken prop also, but the fact that it seemed to recover briefly to stable flight a couple of times, and even begin climbing again, suggests otherwise. It certainly seemed wildly out of control at times. Maybe one or more motors intermittently cutting out? Any evidence from the crashed drone when you found it? (all props attached, can you power it up and do all 4 motors run, etc?)

When I retrieved the drone two blades on the left rear arm were gone (including the screws). A few of the other props had minor damage (think nicks).

I replaced the screws and blades and it flies just like it did before.

Is there any evidence of drone performance being erratic as the battery reaches 20% or is the performance continuous down to zero?

I will say there were winds around 15 mph, but the drone seemed to handle them just fine for around 10 minutes prior to this crash.

Jagerbomb52 · Feb 16, 2023

There should be no erratic flight from low battery at all. I have never had that problem with hundreds of flights. I can almost garantee it was from a broken prop. They are known to brake right at the hub. The screws coming out have my kind of confused though. I have never heard of or seen screws come out in flight before. This might also be the problem that they loosened off and finally fell out causing the crash. The wind really was not that strong, the Anafi can handle wind much stronger. I would keep checking your screws before flight along with any hair line cracks that might be on your props.

darran · Feb 16, 2023

I will check them both and also check to make sure the screws are tight. I bought this drone refurbished on eBay and just assumed it was ready to go. This will encourage me to check all of the screws and props. I've noticed that the blades will work if they have cracks, but that is not ideal. The flight this day had pretty much brand new props. Thank you.

It's really hard to know because it kind of wigs out, trys to recover, and then cycles through that until it hits some trees and comes down. When I found it both props and screws were missing on the back left prop - it looked like the one of the screws was ripped out violently. I almost thought the threads were stripped because I could see some silver metallic at the start of the screw hole.

darran · Feb 16, 2023

I have seen a hawk flying above it, but you can't see any hawks on the video so I am assuming it is not a bird attack

darran · Feb 17, 2023

After reading through this thread, it sounds like one or two of the props could have broken off mid-flight and the drone was trying to keep itself upright, but eventually came down:

Parrot anafi magnetic perturbations / crash

I crashed my anafi for the first time the other day, as far as crashes go I got very lucky. It was between 300 and 400ft up, not unusual height for me, and it had been up for about 10 minutes, when it started going wild tilting and spinning uncontrollably. It DID hold on though and I was able to...

parrotpilots.com

ParrotAnafiFan · Feb 18, 2023

Yeah gaining altitude doesn't make sense for a broken prop...

battery firmware issue or connection issue

never fly on auto wifi mode - it's broke

fly on manual wifi mode.