Back on November 4, I was using my Spark to take some sunset foliage pictures. Being in New Hampshire, it was cold and getting colder as the sun was going down. As I was doing my last flight, my Spark suddenly decided that it had to land NOW. No warning. Just NOW! There was no way for me to abort or postpone the landing. Flying just 10 to 20 feet above the tree line, there was little time to react. All I could do was watch the screen as the Spark crashed into a tall pine tree.

I walked into the woods in search of the Spark. Fortunately, the battery was still alive, and the LEDs were still active. That, with the fading sunlight helped me to locate the drone eating tree. Unfortunately, my Spark was now stuck about 100 feet up in a pine tree with no way for me to get it. All I could do was mark the tree, so I could find it later, and head home for the night to research drone rescue techniques.

Over the coming days, I tried knocking the Spark down using a slingshot, and bow & arrow. They just couldn't get to the spot. I even contemplated using another drone. Unfortunately, my trapped Spark was not visible from above. With each passing day, my hope of recovering the Spark faded. After the first rain storm, I figured the Spark would need some work to be flight worthy. After a few ice storms and freeze/thaw cycles, I just hoped that I'd be able to recover the pictures from the SD card. After a couple of major snow storms, I wondered if the Spark would ever fall out of this tree!

Ever hopeful, I continued to make regular visits to the tree. Usually weekly. Sometimes I'd skip a week. Each time, I was able to spot the Spark stuck up in that tree. After three and a half months of visits, my luck finally changed. We had a wind storm, with gusts of up to 55 M.P.H. The following day, I took my walk to the tree and there on the ground was my Spark. It looked as if someone had just flown it and landed it gently next to the tree. All in one piece, and fairly clean! This was beyond all my expectations!

Once home, I let it warm up a bit. Then I started checking things out. Nothing sounds broken – Nothing rattling around – no water dripping out. The battery was dead, as expected. Will it charge? Seems to. Now the big test; will the Spark power up? I snapped on a new battery, turned it on, and it came to life with beeps and lights! I let it sit and warm some more with its lights blinking and fan running. No smoke. Time to try a launch. To my surprise, it still flies! I've had it out for a few flights now. I'm thinking it may need some calibration since it seems to have a little drift now.  However, I can't complain since it is in much better shape than I thought!

Hats off to DJI for making such a rugged little drone!

  

WOW! that is an amazing story

WOW! that is an amazing story

Wow, glad you got it back. And where is the pictures?

What a great story!   I could just see you heading out there to check on it. So amazing that all was still in working order.

Great story and greater luck!!!  

What an incredible story this is. Wish we all had at least 1% of your luck.

Wow,  that was lucky, great you got your bird back!
Do not forget to analyze the flight logs to find out why Sparky wanted to land in the first place.

Cheers,
Wolferl

Fantastic story!  

Better buy a ticket soon in any lottery, you will win for sure whit your luck !  

Happy many landings,
Cheers
JJB

It's like a fairy tale! Glad you got it eventually and your hope was rewarded.

Excellent, the Spark is really resilient. Thanks for sharing your story.

Wow, thanks for sharing!

Gotta agree with JJB here.   Get out and pick up a lottery ticket ASAP!

Fantastic story!

I really admire your persistence. I would go to shop and grab next one and be done with stuck one....

Hi, thanks for sharing your amazing story on what happened to your aircraft. We're glad that after those storms your aircraft is still working and flies fine. May you please always have a safe flight. Thank you for continued support.

Great story - thanks for sharing and glad all ended well with getting the drone back

great , fantastic . a second chance is all you needed .
fly safe

Hobbyshop Posted at 2-26 19:24
Wow, glad you got it back. And where is the pictures?

Pictures. That's can't believe I forgot them in the post. I'll start adding some!

This is a shot I got from the top. Could only see it when the wind was blowing the right way. Out of all the pictures I took, only one showed the blue from the drone.

This is the view from the bottom. I've highlighted the general area of the drone. With the full resolution picture, you can actually zoom in enough to see the drone.

Picture of the trapped drone using a zoom.

This is a picture of the drone after it came down from the tree. This is after I cleaned it a little. There was dirt and bark on it when I found it. But not much of a mess.

Wolferl Posted at 2-27 01:12
Wow,  that was lucky, great you got your bird back!
Do not forget to analyze the flight logs to find out why Sparky wanted to land in the first place.

That's a good idea. So in looking at the data, it appears that my time to home indicator increased dramatically while I was taking a panorama shot. The orange part of the time line suddenly grew x3 in size while the drone was stationary. Why? Change in temperature? When that happened, it decided to land. I tried to guide it to my yard, but it got too low too fast.

eYeSkYeYe Posted at 2-27 07:23
I really admire your persistence. I would go to shop and grab next one and be done with stuck one....

Actually, after the 2nd ice storm I decided that the treed Spark would be no good anymore. So, I picked up a replacement (white) on Ebay. I guess I had some emotional attachment to the original. It was a gift from my wife. Plus, it was only a 10 min. walk from my house to the tree.

TalonGrip Posted at 2-27 17:41
[view_image]

This is a shot I got from the top. Could only see it when the wind was blowing the right way. Out of all the pictures I took, only one showed the blue from the drone.

Thanks for sharing pictures. I found your story so amazing that I even shared it on facebook. May be you can edit the original post and attach one of these pictures there so that people don't miss it. Cheers!!

TalonGrip Posted at 2-27 18:04
That's a good idea. So in looking at the data, it appears that my time to home indicator increased dramatically while I was taking a panorama shot. The orange part of the time line suddenly grew x3 in size while the drone was stationary. Why? Change in temperature? When that happened, it decided to land. I tried to guide it to my yard, but it got too low too fast.

Hi Talon,

Would you care to post the logs so we can take a look what really happened?

Cheers,
Wolferl

Hi, I'm new to the forums so I don't know where to put this, but I had recently crashed my drone and upon sending it to dji to get fixed, they said no crash was detected in the flight records. I had sent them my flight records multiple times and one time I had accidentally deleted the flight with the crash. I've tried resyncing the flight records like people say, but it's not coming back. Any suggestions on how to get it back? Because dji won't repair my drone if I don't have that record

djiuser_dPtqh6kIsm9e Posted at 2-28 14:43
Hi, I'm new to the forums so I don't know where to put this, but I had recently crashed my drone and upon sending it to dji to get fixed, they said no crash was detected in the flight records. I had sent them my flight records multiple times and one time I had accidentally deleted the flight with the crash. I've tried resyncing the flight records like people say, but it's not coming back. Any suggestions on how to get it back? Because dji won't repair my drone if I don't have that record

Sorry. I'm new too. I trying to figure out how to download my flight log currently.

nilanjan118 Posted at 2-27 23:19
Thanks for sharing pictures. I found your story so amazing that I even shared it on facebook. May be you can edit the original post and attach one of these pictures there so that people don't miss it. Cheers!!

I'll give it a shot

Wolferl Posted at 2-28 04:43
Hi Talon,

Would you care to post the logs so we can take a look what really happened?

Well, this is the first time I looked at the log in the DJI log viewer. I've uploaded it to the link below. I hope it works. In reviewing the log, it looks like I missed the first low battery warning. The second one was too late for me to recover. Looks like it tumbled in the tree a bit before coming to a rest. It also seems to indicate that I lost GPS during the flight at times. Is that typical?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gb10m47l6ecpv1r/DJIFlightRecord_2018-11-04_%5B16-06-09%5D.txt?dl=0