Hello all,


first sorry for mabye a bad english because im a native german.

I ordered a Spark with the combo package (including Remote Control) and take some fligths. Im not a beginner, had before some drones like the phantom. I connected my Android Galaxy S7 Edge to the remote via WiFi and the Drone via WiFi to the Remote Controller.

I reconized several times that the Return To Home Functionality wasnt working correct. Even after calibrating several times, the drone does a "Return to what a drone wants to flight to" but not to the initial position.

And today was the day i lost my drone. I did some sport tricks over the field next to our house, then the Drone wants to do RTH and i saw that the Spark is flying in the other direction again to "RTH". I tried to adjust the direction - which worked for 4 seconds i think then the drone does again a forced other direction instead of flying to the home position. The Problem is now the drone flight into the head of a high tree, i could locate the drone but could not see it in the tree. And the tree is not one of these tree you can climb on.

I think this was a big software failure instead of pilot error. What can i do now ? Is there any change of warranty replacement? I have also bought the dji care package.

I add my flight record as attachment of this post.

Thanks for any help.

:-(

Take off in ATTI mode without sufficient GPS fix
GPS No Match Error after 33 seconds
Drained batteries to the limit without any care
Forced Spark into RTH "Go Home"

Well looks to me like a reckless pilot, hard lesson learned.

Cheers

LeChuck71 Posted at 2017-9-3 08:52
Take off in ATTI mode without sufficient GPS fix
GPS No Match Error after 33 seconds
Drained batteries to the limit without any care

Hi, if the spark is in ATTI mode, it shouldn't perform any RTH ?

LeChuck71 Posted at 2017-9-3 08:52
Take off in ATTI mode without sufficient GPS fix
GPS No Match Error after 33 seconds
Drained batteries to the limit without any care

But it went after that in GPS Mode.... after 33 seconds. I dont know whats wrong with this behavior. I had after 30 seconds 10 satellites.. and drained battery to the limit without care ??? I wasnt able to control the drone so of course its drains the battery to the limit.

Thank you for your reply but i thing you dont see the true behavior that occured. When you see the flight more in detail as animation in the DJI GO Software you see that i tried several times to force the drone to go in opposite direction without any change - signal wasnt lost within this time.

We feel really sorry for you lost, just to make sure I am on the same page, you upgraded both AC and RC to the lateast already, right?
it seems you have not contacted our support to report the case, please get in touch with them via this link to start a case at your most convenience then provide us your case number, we'll help you follow up the progress: http://www.dji.com/support/product
Besides, I have downloaded the flight records you attached and will forward it to engineers for further analysis soon, then conatct you for the analysis result. Thank you for your patience!
  

DJI Elektra Posted at 2017-9-3 22:26
We feel really sorry for you lost, just to make sure I am on the same page, you upgraded both AC and RC to the lateast already, right?
it seems you have not contacted our support to report the case, please get in touch with them via this link to start a case at your most convenience then provide us your case number, we'll help you follow up the progress: http://www.dji.com/support/product
Besides, I have downloaded the flight records you attached and will forward it to engineers for further analysis soon, then conatct you for the analysis result. Thank you for your patience!

Hello. Yes i upgraded RC and batteries to the latest firmware. Thank you for your help.
I had this "Flying away" scenario two times, last time with landing on the top of a tree. Maybe i can check for the first RTH Problem FLight Record also to send it to you.

Thank you for your help.

RENEKLETT Posted at 2017-9-4 02:33
Hello. Yes i upgraded RC and batteries to the latest firmware. Thank you for your help.
I had this "Flying away" scenario two times, last time with landing on the top of a tree. Maybe i can check for the first RTH Problem FLight Record also to send it to you.

I have a support ticket No. 723211

RENEKLETT Posted at 2017-9-4 02:33
Hello. Yes i upgraded RC and batteries to the latest firmware. Thank you for your help.
I had this "Flying away" scenario two times, last time with landing on the top of a tree. Maybe i can check for the first RTH Problem FLight Record also to send it to you.

Thanks for your update. If you encounter any question, you can talk to us. We will be willing to help.

Word of advice: Never ever take off while still in ATTI mode unless you plan to use your drone just right next to you.

I NEVER use RTH! Always I fly home manually! I'm terrified to use it hearing this stories.

I agreed with Adomolis. Don't put your drone in dangerous situation.

Luca Rubino Posted at 2017-9-4 03:38
I NEVER use RTH! Always I fly home manually! I'm terrified to use it hearing this stories.

As for myself I never start RTH if I have control of the drone myself, but I had a few instances when I lost connection to it and the little fella initiated RTH itself and came back to home point safe and sound as it was supposed to

DJI Elektra Posted at 2017-9-4 04:27
I agreed with Adomolis. Don't put your drone in dangerous situation.

Thats what i agree with and of course you know i learned of this situation a lot - mostly that i will in future dont use RTH anymore. But the problem was RTH was initiated by the drone / software itself and when you then lost the control - what can you do then ? Communication between RC and Drone was stable but no control was possible - i only could watch that my drone takes a flight in a direction the drone likes....

Adomolis Posted at 2017-9-4 04:41
As for myself I never start RTH if I have control of the drone myself, but I had a few instances when I lost connection to it and the little fella initiated RTH itself and came back to home point safe and sound as it was supposed to

I wish it had worked for my also. I had about 6 times where i had a RTH Situation. It never flyed in the Homepoint Direction. So i aborted the RTH when i was able to or tried to force a control against or even take the drone my hand from the air.

But i think with my drone was something faulty or with the firmware or software - i dont know. Homepoint was set, GPS satellites much for a good signal (i can think it was perfect because the last GPS Point where the drone crashed in the trees is set correctly in the flight log) - but even it dont worked.

RENEKLETT Posted at 2017-9-4 04:53
I wish it had worked for my also. I had about 6 times where i had a RTH Situation. It never flyed in the Homepoint Direction. So i aborted the RTH when i was able to or tried to force a control against or even take the drone my hand from the air.

But i think with my drone was something faulty or with the firmware or software - i dont know. Homepoint was set, GPS satellites much for a good signal (i can think it was perfect because the last GPS Point where the drone crashed in the trees is set correctly in the flight log) - but even it dont worked.

Well, I would disagree about good signal because looking at your data logs it shows you actually lost GPS signal 7 times and lost data connectivity 5 times. Are there any large antennas or something that might have intervened with your signals in any way?

When I flew yesterday, I had connection warnings whenever the network was set to 5ghz. The error message shows up right on the top of the app and is hard to miss. If you get any errors like this, you need to bring the drone back in and adjust the channel settings. I never take off outside if I can't get good GPS connection and I never fly inside without the prop guards. It looks like the GPS issues caused the home point to be saved somewhere else (It's also good practice check the map to see that the home point is where you expect it to be). I haven't looked at the log, but according to LeChuck71, it was the low battery that triggered return to home. You should have been able to cancel return to home by hitting the pause button.

Adomolis Posted at 2017-9-4 07:26
Well, I would disagree about good signal because looking at your data logs it shows you actually lost GPS signal 7 times and lost data connectivity 5 times. Are there any large antennas or something that might have intervened with your signals in any way?

Yes youre right when i look in detail. No no antennas in this area. Simple fields here.

fansf7fa979c Posted at 2017-9-4 08:01
When I flew yesterday, I had connection warnings whenever the network was set to 5ghz. The error message shows up right on the top of the app and is hard to miss. If you get any errors like this, you need to bring the drone back in and adjust the channel settings. I never take off outside if I can't get good GPS connection and I never fly inside without the prop guards. It looks like the GPS issues caused the home point to be saved somewhere else (It's also good practice check the map to see that the home point is where you expect it to be). I haven't looked at the log, but according to LeChuck71, it was the low battery that triggered return to home. You should have been able to cancel return to home by hitting the pause button.

Thank you for reply. Canceling of RTH wasnt working tryed via APP Slider and Pause Button. I had then 2,3 seconds to fly manual then drone directly goes back in RTH and then i lost control. :-(

Anyone know if this behavior is also with the MAVIC ?

DJI Elektra Posted at 2017-9-4 02:36
Thanks for your update. If you encounter any question, you can talk to us. We will be willing to help.

Any Update in my ticket 723211

This is a bit self serving, but I really believe that every single new Spark user should watch the below video.  I really do believe that a few minutes of learning now about 2 mins of pre-flight checking will save a ton of heartache and wasted time and energy down the road like I see in this thread.

This one would be useful as well:

Thank you very much for your reply Kloo Gee - every post is nice but i watched many Youtube Vieos already before i bought the Spark. I did the tutorial and i have also a P3 and a P4 that i thought i know everything :-( but i keep on the statement that the Spark "Fly Away" was not a normal behavior.

Kloo Gee Posted at 2017-9-5 08:02
This one would be useful as well:

https://youtu.be/tKyGDwUoiQA

And .... nice video !!

RENEKLETT Posted at 2017-9-5 08:06
Thank you very much for your reply Kloo Gee - every post is nice but i watched many Youtube Vieos already before i bought the Spark. I did the tutorial and i have also a P3 and a P4 that i thought i know everything :-( but i keep on the statement that the Spark "Fly Away" was not a normal behavior.

RENEKLETT,

I have always heard that almost every man-made disaster that has happened is not due to a single action or failure, but is almost always due to a whole chain of events that occurred that lead up to the disaster.  

I think if you actually watch the videos instead of dismissing them 1 minute after they were posted, you will see several steps I cover where I talk about things I check before I put my Spark up in the sky.  Doing the whole process I describe does not guarantee you will not have a fly away, but I think it puts you in a good position to stop the chain of events that could possibly lead to an eventual fly away.

Just as two examples.  
1)  You took off in ATTI mode.  This is something discussed in the video as something you should never do.  If you do, I think it greatly increases the possibility of a negative outcome dramatically.  Had you not done this, you could have stopped the chain of events before they became a chain.
2)  I discuss validating the home point that the Spark records and double check it in the map to verify that it looks like the appropriate location you would want your Spark to RTH to in the case of something going awry.  Since you took off in ATTI mode, there is no way that you could have checked this.  If you don't check this, how can you know where it will go to in the case of a disaster?  This is another point in the chain of events you could have stopped the chain at prior to the actual fly-away happening.
3)  I discuss the RTH settings and double checking them to be sure they are set for the environment you are going to be flying in.  One of the settings determines if it raises up to a specified height when an RTH is initiated or not.  In your pre-flight, you should adjust these settings to be appropriate for the environment you will be flying in.  In this case, it sounds like this setting was too low and allowed the Spark to fly into a tree while it was doing the RTH.  This is another place in the chain where it could have affected the potential outcome.

Having said that, the actual fly away itself may very well have been out of your control.  However, I think there are points in the chain leading up to it that you may have been able to influence to lessen the possibility of the fly away occurring.

I still think if you take a few mins to take a look at the videos instead of dismissing them saying you already know everything, you may be in a better place once you fly again.

I'm really sorry it happened and I really hope you are able to find some way to be able to get your Spark back and determine the actual cause of the event.

Best regards,
D

Thank you for reply and for friendship ! :-)

Regarding your last post :

1 You took off in ATTI mode.Yes thats right not the best idea, but what i dont understand some seconds later i had about 15-20 satellites and positioning was ok all the time. But you`re right not the best idea and could be the invoke of a chain of things that could affect problems.

2 Since you took off in ATTI mode, there is no way that you could have checked this. But i saw the homepoint in the software was ok directly next to me, normally it should use this homepoint or im wrong?

3 You`re right here completely.

And i have another question. When the drone will fall from the tree and someone will pick it up, can i see in my dji go software flight plan that it was reactivated?

Thank you so much.

Kloo Gee Posted at 2017-9-5 08:32
RENEKLETT,

I have always heard that almost every man-made disaster that has happened is not due to a single action or failure, but is almost always due to a whole chain of events that occurred that lead up to the disaster.  

I have to agree with all of this. Well posted.

Reneklett I am sorry for your loss and hope for a speedy resolution.