I have had my spark for four months. Twice in the past, it has behavoured oddly (moved without my control) and I have narrowly avoided crashes. Generally, I have really enjoyed it though and got some great footage...until yesterday.
I was flying in a pretty open space. There is ône small water tower on what is an unused building site. After about 5 minutes, the Spark came up with compass error, IMU failure and entered ATTI mode. Before I had any time to react at all, it sped off really fast and eventually, straight into the brick water tower! I recovered it but it's completely broken.

Why does it not just stabilise when it loses GPS? We have to accept there will be times as a pilot that GPS my dip. It seems to me though, that the ATTI mode on the Spark is really poor and it just gets a mind of its own, instead of stabilising and looking for signal again. I have logged a repair request and wiaiting to have a shipping label sent to me, so that it can go off to the Netherlands. I find it really frustrating that they can't just look at flight log and video. You see it clearly lose signal and then fly (not under my control) fast into a building that was a good 30m away.

I am worried they will say it is down to pilot error and not covered in the warranty. I havn't purchased the care plan. Has anyone had a similar situation and if so, what was the outcome?  

Hello and good day karljordan. I am really sorry to know that your DJI Spark crashed. This is not the experience we want you to have with your DJI drone. Thank you for contacting  DJI support at https://www.dji.com/support and created a case for your DJI Spark. Please sync the flight records as well using your DGI Go 4 application for us to further investigate what happened on your previous flight. Thank you.

All radio control aircraft (without stabilized autopilot) seem to have a mind of their own.  That is why student radio control pilots have an instructor on a second controller linked to the student so the instructor can take over when (not if) the student loses control.  Flying accurately isn't as easy as the Spark's autopilot makes it look.  

Even with my 15 years of RC experience, I plan on going full down to put the Spark on the ground quickly if it ever goes into ATTI mode.  I think it is too small to accurately control without its autopilot and it would be all over the place as I yanked on the sticks.  Insurance is the only way to protect the investment.  That or lots of close in flying practice with an unstabilized toy drone.

Hi KarlJordan,

The ATTI mode is perfectly stable on the Spark. The problem is that we pilots, being on the ground, totally underestimate how strong and gusty winds are in 20m height! The wind carries a Spark away very quickly. See my video at about 9:45:


A second problem is that pilots panick easily when something unexpected like an ATTI drop occurs, moving the RC sticks in an unccordinated manner. Have you looked at the flight logs?

Cheers,
Wolferl

Atti mode does not compensate for the wind.

Thanks for the replies. There was pretty much no wind at all. I am going to upload a video to Youtube when I get my laptop back next week. It shows that the Spark has a huge gain in speed as soon as it goes into atti mode - nothing to do with the wind.

Alot of the above is a little irrelevant, as I had no chance to react. The flight data shows it lose connection and go into atti mode (no wind) and as I said, it sped forward in less than a second. Surely thats a problem with the aircraft and not pilot error?

DJI Stephen Posted at 12-27 08:57
Hello and good day karljordan. I am really sorry to know that your DJI Spark crashed. This is not the experience we want you to have with your DJI drone. Thank you for contacting  DJI support at https://www.dji.com/support and created a case for your DJI Spark. Please sync the flight records as well using your DGI Go 4 application for us to further investigate what happened on your previous flight. Thank you.

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Hi, how do I do this? The flight record shows it lose connection of course, but because of this, does not show it speeding into the building. I do however, have the video, which shows it speeding up dramtically, whilst in ATTI mode - how do I get this to you?

Thanks,

Karl

fans8fe2d396 Posted at 12-27 19:00
Atti mode does not compensate for the wind.

Hi,

As I said, it was as calm as you could hope for and the drone was not very high at all. Also, it wasnt a slow drif, battling the wind. It was a sudden increase in speed. I will post a link to the video when I upload it to youtube. My laptop with Adobe Premier Pro is at work at the moment.

karljordan Posted at 2018-12-31 04:56
Hi, how do I do this? The flight record shows it lose connection of course, but because of this, does not show it speeding into the building. I do however, have the video, which shows it speeding up dramtically, whilst in ATTI mode - how do I get this to you?

Thanks,

Hi Karl, if the unit is under warranty period, we can arrange data analysis to check the exact status. Please kindly provide us with the case number, we'll keep following up.

DJI Susan Posted at 1-1 01:05
Hi Karl, if the unit is under warranty period, we can arrange data analysis to check the exact status. Please kindly provide us with the case number, we'll keep following up.

Thanks Susan, it is CAS-2597967-F2K1W4.

I received the UPS label a couple of days ago and sent it off yesterday and as I said, I have a copy of the flight data and recording of the crash if needed.

Thanks.

Karl

karljordan Posted at 1-1 01:15
Thanks Susan, it is CAS-2597967-F2K1W4.

I received the UPS label a couple of days ago and sent it off yesterday and as I said, I have a copy of the flight data and recording of the crash if needed.

Received with thanks! Upon checking your case, the package is on the way, the designated team will take care once the package arrived. We'll keep an eye on the status as well. Hope we can figure this out soon.

DJI Susan Posted at 1-3 00:30
Received with thanks! Upon checking your case, the package is on the way, the designated team will take care once the package arrived. We'll keep an eye on the status as well. Hope we can figure this out soon.

Hi Susan,

I just got this email - it’s an absolute joke. No explanation, just what it says in the picture, followed by a £400 quote to fix.

So apparently there was nothing wrong with the Spark? All of them just accelerate at high speed when they lose signal I guess? In an open area?

I will be uploading a video of the flight data and crash footage to YouTube, which shows it wasn’t connected when it suddenly flew at great speed with no direction from me.

I will also include the voice recording of my appalling call with customer services, who were very rude and no help at all on the phone.

I will be sharing this on every DJI and drone group I can find online, with a link to the video.

What an absolute shambles of a company, with no regard for customer care. I am not surprised DJI have 1/5 on trust pilot.

Reading them  reviews really shows how appalling the company treats its customers.

karljordan Posted at 1-7 08:11
Hi Susan,

I just got this email - it’s an absolute joke. No explanation, just what it says in the picture, followed by a £400 quote to fix.

Sorry for the troubles. This has been forwarded to the designated team for double check, and they will contact you during the working time soon.