The invention relates to an unmanned aerial vehicle tunnel defect detection method and system, an unmanned aerial vehicle carries an LED module, a camera, a laser radar, an ultrasonic range finder and an IMU, and the method comprises the following steps: collecting images in a tunnel based on the LED module and the camera to obtain a training image set; training by using the training image set to obtain a defect detection model; collecting real-time tunnel images, performing suspected defect detection on the real-time tunnel images through the defect detection model, obtaining unmanned aerial vehicle pose information based on the camera, the laser radar, the ultrasonic range finder and the IMU, and controlling the unmanned aerial vehicle to hover. Compared with the prior art, the LED module is used for supplementing illumination in the tunnel, the IMU, the camera, the laser radar and the ultrasonic range finder are fused to achieve unmanned aerial vehicle pose estimation, the trained defect detection model is used for detecting whether suspected defects exist or not in real time, hovering is carried out after the suspected defects are found, and defect detection is further carried out. Accurate pose estimation and defect detection can be realized in a tunnel which has no GPS signal and is highly symmetrical inside.