I had been flying my drone for 2 days after receiving it with gesture control, phone and RC. On the second day, I was using Palm Control and it simply went dead and dropped to the ground. Fortunately it was only about 6 feet off the ground, so it only had a few scuffs. Just as many above, when I powered it back on, it still had plenty of battery. It seemed to be ok after that, but I have filed a case and I'm exchanging it. I just wanted to chime in that this same issue happened to me also.

Same thing happened to me and DJI will not warranty it.

Flying in GPS mode, actually just hovering, at 220ft away and about 15ft above a lake. Using RC and iPhone 6 with Go4 app. Took off at 100% battery. At 76% battery it shut off and dropped into the lake. I was watching it and I was stunned to say the least. I'm an experienced drone pilot with hundreds of flights with DJI AC and Go app. I've never had this happen before.

I was unable to retrieve drone. I tried to find it but could not. Started a customer support claim and everything went fairly smooth. Sent them my flight logs and they reviewed them. Their assessment agreed with me that there were no warnings, unusual inputs or other data AT ALL to suggest pilot error. Obviously some sort of critical battery error or other catastrophic defect that caused it to shut down. Flight log below.

http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/N653KZDOIHYTJPXF4EM7/

Their response? "Sorry for your loss. You can buy another one for 30% off. "

They should have just said "How stupid and rich are you? We will make all the defective drones that you want to buy. It may fly, it might not. We don't care because we have your money"

Needless to say I won't be taking their offer.

My Spark also fell from the sky yesterday (

I was using the RC and an OnePlus3 Android phone.  I was flying in GPS mode at 226Ft altitude just above me at the edge of a large park with just a few buildings situated at around 90 ft from me
At 2m 5.7s in to the flight with 86% battery, the screen froze at which point I looked up to get the drone to land visually. There I was standing, looking at the clear sky with no drone to be seen.  Next second I could hear a large bang 20 feet in front of me.  It was my spark falling like a rock... My drone fell on hard cement. The battery popped out somewhere in the grass, nowhere to be seen, all the props destroyed, one of the motors is slightly bend and the top-case scratched. Also my front sensor screen popped out, I've managed to find that fortunately.
The sd card received with the drone says "please format" and it can't be formatted.  The phone cache didn't record anything visually.

I do have my DJI care refresh and I've sent it and the RC already. My biggest concern is about safety and a general confidence in a drone which decides to drop like a rock.
Besides safety, my belief is that using one of my refresh pack's isn't really fair, given that pilot error shouldn't make the drone go crash like a rock mode, it looks more like a faulty unit.

I really love the drone, it's really helpful for small cinematic projects. It's just that I don't feel I can trust it anymore.
Really hope that DJi's client service is up to the task.

Flight log below.
http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/M8YOJ169HKRDIRQ03GFS/

fansda110482 Posted at 2017-7-14 01:42
My Spark also fell from the sky yesterday (

I was using the RC and an OnePlus3 Android phone.  I was flying in GPS mode at 226Ft altitude just above me at the edge of a large park with just a few buildings situated at around 90 ft from me

Hey 482, just had a look at your logs, it's definitely puzzling seems like power just cut out , your flight log ends early.
However you still have your spark and dji should be able to tell a lot more as to what happened from your dat file contained in your black box in the Mavic.

One thing I did note although has nothing to do with your crash, you took off with no gps, you are risking your spark to drift on the wind, not really a good idea and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Good luck with dji I hope they give you a warranty for your spark.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-7-14 03:07
Hey 482, just had a look at your logs, it's definitely puzzling seems like power just cut out , your flight log ends early.
However you still have your spark and dji should be able to tell a lot more as to what happened from your dat file contained in your black box in the Mavic.

You are quite right, I've rushed things, won't happen again! During the flight I've noticed my error of not having any GPS and returned the drone to a lower altitude. In my second elevation of the drone, when I've had 17 or 19 satellites that's when my spark fell.

Update: My spark is at the repair center and has been given a quote, however DJI seems to expect me to use my DJI care refresh. It appears no one has looked into my case to determine the actual cause of the accident, because if it was, the cost should be covered under warranty. If any admin could help me communicate this I would be grateful. I don't think anyone has investigated my case, but instead only looked at repair.

Patrick C Posted at 2017-7-14 07:36
Update: My spark is at the repair center and has been given a quote, however DJI seems to expect me to use my DJI care refresh. It appears no one has looked into my case to determine the actual cause of the accident, because if it was, the cost should be covered under warranty. If any admin could help me communicate this I would be grateful. I don't think anyone has investigated my case, but instead only looked at repair.

Good luck. They are refusing to warranty mine also. Since I was unable to retrieve the drone I can't even use Refresh that I purchased.

Total rip off. These incidents do occur and they try and pretend that they aren't liable. But they are.

Keep after them. You shouldn't have to use your refresh for their defect.

BriRi Posted at 2017-7-15 16:22
List of DJI Forum Users Reporting SPARK Shut OFF in Flight:

PatrickC

Can I ask if you guys used it with RC or phone to control the spark?

seems like all the fails are happening flying without the RC is this the case?

Lucas775 Posted at 2017-7-15 18:44
seems like all the fails are happening flying without the RC is this the case?

I was flying with RC

Patrick C Posted at 2017-7-15 19:24
I was flying with RC

Thanks for confirming that.

BriRi Posted at 2017-7-15 16:22
List of DJI Forum Users Reporting SPARK Shut OFF in Flight:

PatrickC

How many of the Users are flying with out RC?

I was flying with RC also

Just had the same thing today. My girls were flying with iPhone. Had flown short flights a few days ago, then 3 batteries worth a couple days ago, all without incident. Today on battery 3, were flying with iPhone in a normal outdoor practice flight at about 30' when it stopped, flipped and dropped. Power was off and the GO app said something like it taking off or something.

Fortunately we were at the local flying club airfield and it fell into weeds and soft dirt, so no damage.

I'm an experienced Inspire pilot but this was something new. Did not see any reason until I read this thread this evening.

While my girls' spark is fine, my spark arrives next week. And I shoot over water!!!!!!  Hopefully the cause of this failure can be discovered and fixed by DJI soon!

nwhit Posted at 2017-7-15 20:52
Just had the same thing today. My girls were flying with iPhone. Had flown short flights a few days ago, then 3 batteries worth a couple days ago, all without incident. Today on battery 3, were flying with iPhone in a normal outdoor practice flight at about 30' when it stopped, flipped and dropped. Power was off and the GO app said something like it taking off or something.

Fortunately we were at the local flying club airfield and it fell into weeds and soft dirt, so no damage.

So far DJI ignore this issue and treat as normal user crash their Spark !

rickysuperdog Posted at 2017-7-15 22:42
So far DJI ignore this issue and treat as normal user crash their Spark !

I think you will find some of crashes are as a result of spark dropping for some reason most have happened close to the ground low altitude, also a number have flown away as a result of compass/ gps problem,
So when you break it down this is not just one problem, but some are trying to group all crashes together, which is not correct. If those who crashed put up there flight log to link below, we should be able to separate different causes, and it might also show if this is a problem with manufacturers or operator's.

I'm thinking that for some it might be a problem with some sort of defect, while others are just operator problems,

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

Flying over a pond in back yard - power shut off and it dropped into the pond. Complete loss. Using the RC, fully charged battery, nothing odd or strange before it happened. Simply shut off and dropped like a rock.  I had video on and the video stops right before the power off. How do I diagnose? $500 20 foot under... How do I make a claim?

Jim

fansb31f1926 Posted at 2017-7-16 04:00
Flying over a pond in back yard - power shut off and it dropped into the pond. Complete loss. Using the RC, fully charged battery, nothing odd or strange before it happened. Simply shut off and dropped like a rock.  I had video on and the video stops right before the power off. How do I diagnose? $500 20 foot under... How do I make a claim?

Jim

First. Sync your flight to dji cloud.
Contact support@dji.co and start an RMA
Might be wise to PM a mod here to try to escalate your case.

You can also upload your log to link below, and come back here and post the link.

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

same thing happened to me just now. loaded up 2nd battery, palm control launched, rise to about 30m (@42second) and it completely shut off and fall from the sky...was using RC and S8+(OTG connection)
i've lost my faith with it to fly again. sad.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-7-16 03:37
I think you will find some of crashes are as a result of spark dropping for some reason most have happened close to the ground low altitude, also a number have flown away as a result of compass/ gps problem,
So when you break it down this is not just one problem, but some are trying to group all crashes together, which is not correct. If those who crashed put up there flight log to link below, we should be able to separate different causes, and it might also show if this is a problem with manufacturers or operator's.

I appreciate the logs analysis centre and had uploaded 2 problemic log and 1 normal log. (im a Mac user so uploaded to https://airdata.com)

BTW my log was done analysis by DJI and the explain was log record stopped at the middle of flight and no crash log was found, so it cannot be analysis and the cost will be pay by the user.

What the common sense they have ? as the Spark was shut down during the flight of course the log was stopped at the middle !!!

No argue with them as I will claim the refresh several months later if they fixed most of the issues.

PS: Although their report shown that motor, propeller and battery were damaged during the crash but my Spark was still flying with no problem recently !

Updated the list in my post above.... Keeps getting longer.

Anyone on the list who can update RC vs phone vs no controller please chime in. Likewise if you'd like to be added to list.

nwhit Posted at 2017-7-15 20:52
Just had the same thing today. My girls were flying with iPhone. Had flown short flights a few days ago, then 3 batteries worth a couple days ago, all without incident. Today on battery 3, were flying with iPhone in a normal outdoor practice flight at about 30' when it stopped, flipped and dropped. Power was off and the GO app said something like it taking off or something.

Fortunately we were at the local flying club airfield and it fell into weeds and soft dirt, so no damage.

Interesting. Were y'all flying pretty steadily or were you hovering?

I was on my 4th battery in a little over an hour.  Had been flying pretty steadily beforehand but on my "crash" flight it was real slow and then just hovering. I'm wondering if the SPARK or it's batteries can't handle the heat?

I think the commonality of many of these crashes is that the power of the bird quit mid flight. That is a very different problem than fly-aways, erratic movements, etc. DJI needs to find out why the power quits in mid flight.

My Spark dropped out of the sky today too. I was only having a small fly about in the back garden, and it just shut down and fell out of the sky at a hight of 1.7 meters - it was as if the power just switched off - it was hovering and not moving. Thankfully it fell onto grass and the only damage was to one of the propellers, which took the full force of the impact snapping it. Other than that, it was fine. I checked the flight log and a 'landing tip' popped up along with a warning that 'Obstacle avoidance will be disabled in landing' just before the crash. Battery power was at 40%.

I decided to try and recreate the falling, so I put the spark was in tripod mode as before and moved it south to north across the garden and notice that elevation of the spark changed dramatically, moving higher towards the house and when returning back, the drone would drop almost to the ground - the angle of flight was about 30 degrees. When I tried this in a different spot in the garden, going south to north, it kept it's altitude and was fine.
What I suspect happened was the drone thought it was on the ground and just shut down. We have a decked area (close to where it fell) that may have confused the drone, see photo. Another possibility is that there's a Wifi transmitter very close to where I was flying which may have caused some interference.  Whatever it was, I was unable to get it crash again.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/64208525@N00/35124239864/

I try to hypothesize ........ the summer heat?

The drone lights up and leaves it for 3 minutes on the ground (the fan starts) the top is very hot ... and I have temperatures in the order of 30 degrees Celsius in the shade, in the sun they touch 40 degrees Celsius.

I think as PCs with high temperatures stop to save the components ..

Maybe the spark does this.


translate with google sorry.

My Spark disappeared 7/2/17 my controller disconnected my I-phone went dark and my Spark is gone have looked all over put out flyers but nothing. Had just calibrated it had satellites said return to home updated was green ready to fly, hit return to home but nothing. DJI case# CAS-764625-B7R9V9 I really hope I get a Spark just have to wait and hope. If I do get a spark I will never let it go very far i maybe I need to get a tethered like a surfboard and attach it to me

I wanted to follow up on my earlier posts.
First a quick summary:
I was flying the spark in tripod mode at 120m above my backyard when the spark abruptly shut off and dropped into the heavy brush behind my yard. I was not able to recover it at the time. Customer support was contacted. Logs were sent in. A case file was opened. I heard nothing of substance from customer support. Their excuse: analyzing these things takes time.
Now for an update:
Two or three days later, after hours of hacking and searching through the underbrush I was miraculously able to locate the spark!
Falling from that height had snapped off a motor arm.
Customer service was contacted and the case was changed from a possible replacement to a repair. (CRM:0193000000225 for those who care.) Flight logs were downloaded from the device and uploaded to DJI. I was promised I would receive a shipping label in two business days.
That was a week ago.
I still have not received a shipping label despite repeated emails to customer support, each time receiving a reply that it would be coming ASAP.
I have to say that I am ever more convinced by my experience and by what I read on these forums that what we have here is a defective product from a company that does not care one bit about customer support. When the device works it's quite good but there are clearly some fatal flaws that indicate that it was not quite ready for the public. I'm referring to the many reports of power cuts and also the many reports of the various quick shots not working as advertised, something that I also had experienced but was willing to overlook so long as the basic functionality was sound, believing that the quick shots would most likely be fixed in a future firmware update.
DJI, you are flirting with a PR nightmare. Remember what the Karma did to GoPro just a few months ago. Don't repeat their disastrous mistake. Unlike the Karma, these problems appear to be due to flaws in the firmware and therefore they should be correctable but in the mean time you need to go out of your way to quickly help those customers who have encountered the power cut issue and make things right or this will quickly blow up on you.
Perhaps in China it's OK to string your customers along and allow them to feel cheated out of hundreds of dollars but where I'm from, that's simply not acceptable.

hfog Posted at 2017-7-16 16:10
I wanted to follow up on my earlier posts.
First a quick summary:
I was flying the spark in tripod mode at 120m above my backyard when the spark abruptly shut off and dropped into the heavy brush behind my yard. I was not able to recover it at the time. Customer support was contacted. Logs were sent in. A case file was opened. I heard nothing of substance from customer support. Their excuse: analyzing these things takes time.

hfog

Thanks for the update. I'm assuming by your height and tripod mode that you were using an RC so I will update my list above to reflect that. Keep us informed of your progress.

BriRi Posted at 2017-7-16 17:08
hfog

Thanks for the update. I'm assuming by your height and tripod mode that you were using an RC so I will update my list above to reflect that. Keep us informed of your progress.

Yep. Using the RC. I will definitely keep you posted.

should i wait to buy the spark? now im scared lol i was looking to buy this drone right now. it is hardware or software, the karma was hardware related.

Can you guys chime in here as well?
https://forum.dji.com/thread-104922-1-1.html

wow these stories are so scary.. how can i dare to fly with a spark again.. or worse still with DJI..

fans2f95dcc9 Posted at 2017-7-17 05:53
wow these stories are so scary.. how can i dare to fly with a spark again.. or worse still with DJI..

Just go fly it that's what you got it for, none of the cases above have been analysed, so we don't know if this is a fault with hardware software or operator, one thing we do know is that some of the cases are similar and some are totally different, but it seems someone chooses to lump them altogether because maybe it will add to the drama.

It's par for what you will get on these forums, and can have the effect of putting the fear into new flyers. But when you break it down it's a tiny amount of sparks having problems, the vast majority are flying fine.

Updated list with latest reports from this forum only. I am only adding cases that describe mid air shut off. Many of these have been sent to DJI for review and repair so hopefully we will hear something soon.

As of now over 25 cases described.

On the contrary, there are sparks that are de-powering and dropping out of the sky for no clear reason. I'm an experienced Inspire pilot and know firsthand that this is NOT something to be taken lightly. It is NOT pilot error in the case of losing power. It is either hardware or software/firmware related. A prudent person, based on the numerous reports of this happening, will be very careful where they fly their spark until the cause is determined and is resolved. With my Inspire, I fly 90% of the time over water. With my own Spark that arrives today, I cannot realistically fly over water until this issue is resolved. I've instructed my girls to fly their new spark only over an open area at lower altitude and where there will be a soft landing.

The problem is real. And while there may be other people with issues such as loss of control, fly-aways, pilot error issues, out of range, etc., those issues should not be confused with the sparks that are shutting off midair and crashing. There is no determination of why they are doing this, so until DJI sorts this out, the best advice for ALL Sparks is to be careful where and how high you fly. While it is totally obvious that this power-off problem does not affect all sparks, it clearly is affecting a decent number of them. I would dare anyone at this point to be able to determine which sparks will have the problem before it happens! We just do not have any feedback from DJI at this point. But it would be careless to simply go out and fly, fly, fly thinking it will never happen. Odds are it won't. And it has happened and without any warning. But as posters have said, the results if it happens can be loss of the bird. My girls' bird landed in a soft area, so no problem. Other people have not been so lucky.

I can only speak for my case and I am fairly certain that it had nothing to do with operator error. My Spark was hovering in tripod mode and barely moving at all so there was no sudden movement or other random factor going on. When I eventually recovered the aircraft, the battery was seated perfectly and it was undamaged. I pressed the power button and it fired right up as if nothing had happened. If one of the motor arms hadn't snapped in the fall I'd have been able to put it right back in the air. I strongly suspect a firmware problem that caused the system to reset but of course I don't have nearly enough data to support that. I can only base it on the fact that there were no apparent electrical problems with the aircraft after I recovered it.

As for the question about whether to keep flying or not, all I can say is that it's a pretty tough aircraft. Just be careful where you fly so as not to lose it or hurt anyone or anything if it should happen to fall and I'd say you're going to be fine. While the number of these reports is a little alarming, it's pretty clear that most people aren't having problems. My guess is that eventually DJI is going to release a firmware patch that fixes this issue. Until then, just fly carefully.

hfog Posted at 2017-7-17 11:48
I can only speak for my case and I am fairly certain that it had nothing to do with operator error. My Spark was hovering in tripod mode and barely moving at all so there was no sudden movement or other random factor going on. When I eventually recovered the aircraft, the battery was seated perfectly and it was undamaged. I pressed the power button and it fired right up as if nothing had happened. If one of the motor arms hadn't snapped in the fall I'd have been able to put it right back in the air. I strongly suspect a firmware problem that caused the system to reset but of course I don't have nearly enough data to support that. I can only base it on the fact that there were no apparent electrical problems with the aircraft after I recovered it.

As for the question about whether to keep flying or not, all I can say is that it's a pretty tough aircraft. Just be careful where you fly so as not to lose it or hurt anyone or anything if it should happen to fall and I'd say you're going to be fine. While the number of these reports is a little alarming, it's pretty clear that most people aren't having problems. My guess is that eventually DJI is going to release a firmware patch that fixes this issue. Until then, just fly carefully.

As long as you have your AC you should enough data to show what caused power cut off, but we need to see a report from someone who's data has been analysed, this should show the reason, but as of yet dji seems to be slow in coming forward with that information, I wonder why.

My spark did the same today.  On the 3rd flight of a new battery (previous battery has several flights no issues) About 6 meters up it just died.  Luckily it wasn't damaged. The battery was at around 70% when it died. When I picked the Spark up it was totally shut down. I don't have an RC and it was connected to my iPhone.  Also caught it on a phone camera.

7/16/2017 Flying the Spark in Monterey. at 0700. I had been flying it all week with no issues. On this particular morning no issues were reported. Distance was about 170 - 200 feet away from me with a height of 288ft, with 80%+ battery life left. Little to no wind at the time of the flight. Out of no where my screen went blank and the drone dropped from the sky straight into the Pacific Ocean. I put on my dive gear and went looking, but viability was 1 to 2 feet. Long story short power got cut mid flight and the droned ended up in the Ocean. I currently have a ticket open, but still awaiting a reply.

Onomarn Posted at 2017-7-17 12:50
7/16/2017 Flying the Spark in Monterey. at 0700. I had been flying it all week with no issues. On this particular morning no issues were reported. Distance was about 170 - 200 feet away from me with a height of 288ft, with 80%+ battery life left. Little to no wind at the time of the flight. Out of no where my screen went blank and the drone dropped from the sky straight into the Pacific Ocean. I put on my dive gear and went looking, but viability was 1 to 2 feet. Long story short power got cut mid flight and the droned ended up in the Ocean. I currently have a ticket open, but still awaiting a reply.

Onomarn,

Sorry for your loss. Good luck with your claim. Keep us posted.

I added you to the list above. I'm assuming you were using RC because of distance/height.