I was flying at the beach in windy conditions, missed the landing pad and into sand. One of the motors was completely submerged. I heard/felt a grinding and the motor would not spin at arming.

After removing props and blowing hard, it gave way, but am wondering if any permanent damage has been done?

sand is actually very very damaging.. surprises a lot of people actually...  it probably has done some damage, it's more of a matter of extent of the damage, as sand is pretty much evil to most thing...  specially moving parts, bearings, even glass, steel, stainless steel is damaged by sand..  doesn't take much, if you saw my S8, you would be in shock was caused by smallest amount of dust in my pocket, not even grains of sand like dust from sand..


as for what i would do, being as i beat things pretty hard and living half my time on a farm...  i would just use compressed air, 150psi typical shop compressor, nothing too crazy, get blower nozzel and spray up in there..   then run the blade by hand see if it is smooth, if not, then RIP

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One main problem with sand is some particles are magnetic. I had to clean 4 motors that had sand in them. What worked for was an air compressor set to ~125 lbs. Once the shaft rotates without any pops or sticking you should be good to go. Check the other motors as well. You will have to remove the motor so you can blow though the motor from the bottom up. I have never removed a motor from a Spark but there must be some instructions on youtube.  Do not try to run the motors or fly until you re sure they are clean.

Sand can at times create the Gimbal overload error. This error happens often when dust particles enter the gimbal motor. I had come acoss this issue couple of times. I remedied this by using a 750 watts air blower to thoroughly clean the gimbal motor. You must do this while turning slowly the gimbal up and downward motion till the grinding feel is completly removed.

I had sand in the motors and in the gimbal, causing the overload error (after landing in the sand, big mistake). I cleaned it out by simply blowing on it (got out the worst) and mostly tapping lightly on it a lot (all the finer particles eventually fell out). After about half an hour of that, it was ok. But I guess compressed air would be easier...

Good Day! Thank you for that information. To test if there is a problem with the Spark due to the sand incedent do some test flight. See if there is a differnce from before the incedent and after the incedent.

Wanted to let everyone know I got sand in my Mavic 2 and was able to clean it out of the motors and it seems like it has worked. What I used was a small cross head screw, two small Allen Wrenches, Pliers with something to pry with, and compressed air. Step 1: disassemble motors as much as possible(top plastic part, then pry off LED lighting cover to reveal Philips, then bottom plastic(back ones pull of with pliers, front use Allen), lastly inner motor Allens), motors should be only held on by wires. Step 2: spray air in motors from top and bottom and turn motors with hands to release sand and get most of it out of there(keep doing this until they are smooth). After that they should be good to go, hope this helped anyone!

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I found this video very helpful, it saves my drone Mavic 2 mini