This happened to me twice tonight. I lauched the spark from my balcony on the 37th floor, and the drone just started flying off into the distance even though I stopped controlling it. Usually when I take my thumbs off the controls (using the iPhone), the drone hovers in place.  However tonight, it would just keep going instead of hovering in place. Eventually it would land itself and I would have to go on a mission to find it.

This happened twice tonight, and it's my first time flying at night so i'm wondering if it's related to that. Has anyone had a similar experience?

If you are flying in the U.S. you are not supposed to fly at night without a commercial license. If you do not have GPS lock, the drone will use optical sensors to stabilize. They do not work in the dark. This is explained in the manual. Launching from a balcony for a first test flight of flying in the dark sounds pretty reckless to me even if you live in a region where there are no laws against flying at night.

fansf7fa979c Posted at 2017-7-7 22:00
If you are flying in the U.S. you are not supposed to fly at night without a commercial license. If you do not have GPS lock, the drone will use optical sensors to stabilize. They do not work in the dark. This is explained in the manual. Launching from a balcony for a first test flight of flying in the dark sounds pretty reckless to me even if you live in a region where there are no laws against flying at night.

Sorry, you have this backwards. Recreational night flights ARE allowed, you only need special exemptions to operate at night commercially.

http://dronelawjournal.com/model-aircraft-operations/
My spark had such numerous bad behaviors I returned it and am awaiting a refund.

You most likely had a problem with compass or gps this will cause fly away. A lot of people have problems taking off from balcony because they usually have a lot of steel or rebar concrete which has a big effect on your compass and gps. You could upload your log to link below, just click link and follow instructions and come back here and post link for your log. I will have a look at it.

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/

There are at least 100 threads across multiple forums where people have issues flying from balconies.  Most result in crashes.

I have a Mavic Pro and have had mine behave identically at night. Even in ATTI mode. Take off was from ground. Flew from backyard without ancillary interference (have flown here numerous times during day). These occasionally perform poorly at night!!!