I feel like I'm in a nightmare. After a multitude of test flights in a large field, I got confident enough to take the spark near water. Just after takeoff, home point was recorded and connected to 16 satellites. Suddenly my screen flashed red "No GPS signal" and my Spark took off over the water and splashed down shortly after. Never got more than a meter off the ground.

A short flight record was recorded so there’s proof of the flight and that controls were not touched. I’m going to attempt to recover the aircraft early tomorrow morning as it got too late to see it in the water. Do you think DJI would be able to work something out with me in this situation?

I'm attaching a screenshot and the final flight record.

Ok, for some reason the screenshot and flight record didn't attach. Trying again here.
Flight record CSV

Ugh.....that is a nightmare.  I hope you are able to recover it so that you can get it replaced.  I'm half afraid to fly mine near water now.

Man that sucks...I just don't have enough confidence in this thing yet, thus my max has been 1,200 feet in an open field.  I am taking it out tomorrow to an abandoned airfield where we fly are fixed wings and I'll put it through all the tests.

Can you upload the flight data to Airdata?

Update: Recovered the aircraft. Hopefully DJI can assist on what went wrong and how I can get back up in the air... but probably well away from water till some trust is rebuilt.

Lok Mavic Posted at 2017-6-24 02:33
Can you upload the flight data to Airdata?

I'll look into that later today.

It sounds like you might have taken of near some magnetic interference, try upload logs. Was there any steel or rebar concrete underneath or close to spark when you took off.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-6-24 02:54
It sounds like you might have taken of near some magnetic interference, try upload logs. Was there any steel or rebar concrete underneath or close to spark when you took off.

There was a small bridge about 75' from my takeoff location. And I was about 30' away from a road.

How would I have known that this wasn't a safe location?

Here's the Airdata info.

InTheReeds Posted at 2017-6-24 10:51
Here's the Airdata info.

The road or the bridge were not your problem, your airdata tell no story and show very little detail, there were some power lines not far from you they can affect your compass.

It looks from what you said that you auto  took off and your spark just took off on its own , your log shows you had gps , red screen is most likely loss of downlink ,when your aircraft just takes off like this it's usually compass heading and gps heading i.e. Direction you push the stick are not the same meaning bad compass usually magnetic interference, now you say you didn't push any stick.
So I can only surmise that compass was corrupting gps causing your spark to fly away out of your control, if your compass was off no matter what stick movements you made it wouldn't make any difference.

Dji will be able to tell a lot more about this from your dat file which they can extract from your spark.

So first you should sync your flight to dji cloud and start a RMA case with dji and arrange to have it sent for replacement or repair.
I would only be guessing but from what I've seen in similar cases dji have awarded warranty .
But from your limited log all I can do is guess, it will be up to dji.
Good luck.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-6-24 11:24
The road or the bridge were not your problem, your airdata tell no story and show very little detail, there were some power lines not far from you they can affect your compass.

It looks from what you said that you auto  took off and your spark just took off on its own , your log shows you had gps , red screen is most likely loss of downlink ,when your aircraft just takes off like this it's usually compass heading and gps heading i.e. Direction you push the stick are not the same meaning bad compass usually magnetic interference, now you say you didn't push any stick.

Thanks for the reply. Did all the above and now playing the patience game.

I didn't get a lot out of reading the Flight Data I linked. HOPEFULLY DJI will get more from the logs. And yeah, no stick movement. Didn't even have time attempt to correct the flyaway.

Here's to hoping.

We are really sorry to hear the accident, and would love to help.
Please make sure you sync the flight record via APP successfully then leave me your dji account (e-mail address), we'll have the records analyzed then let you know what happened, thank you very much!
Besides, may I know you have conected the tech support to get a case number or not?

DJI Natalia Posted at 2017-6-26 18:05
We are really sorry to hear the accident, and would love to help.
Please make sure you sync the flight record via APP successfully then leave me your dji account (e-mail address), we'll have the records analyzed then let you know what happened, thank you very much!
Besides, may I know you have conected the tech support to get a case number or not?

Sent a PM. Thanks!

What a nightmare! Good luck, I have flown mine over water a few times already but now I'm thinking I'll do a compass calibration before each water flight moving forward... Keep us posted!

Whatever happens please post here. We all want to learn from this incident.

InTheReeds Posted at 2017-6-28 10:33
Sent a PM. Thanks!

Thank you, received that, will try to sync and analyze the flight records on our end firstly and get back to you for an update.

What is causing the Lost GPS Signal?

Bluebus19 Posted at 2017-7-12 22:21
What is causing the Lost GPS Signal?

Update 2: DJI is repairing my Spark free of charge under warranty. Should have it back in a couple of days.

As far as what went wrong, the only response I've currently seen...
"It was repaired under warranty. Not pilot error."

My guess is faulty GPS sensor or compass?

After this experience, trusting the spark again feels sketchy at best. I'm looking at adding some safeguards. Possibly a tile tracker, and for water shots some float attachment till these initial bugs are squashed.

I have faith in the spark, there's just a lot of us feeling some early adopter blues.. or greens... or whatever spark color you chose and is acting up

Update 3: Spark is back from DJI. Seems 100% healthy. Thanks DJI!

I also almost lost GPS signal with Spark, it was for a short period, it wasn't far, i brought it back. Flying Phantom Standard exact same spot, No problem, more reliable