Hi fellow drone enthusiasts,

I am devastated. I wanted to do my second flight on the same location today. (Nice day, calm breeze) I flew 24 m straight forward over a cliffs edge and then the spark fell out of the sky. The battery was full and the drone was still in sight. We were able to recover it, it dropped into a shallow saltwater rockpool, we rinsed it in freshwater and now its in a bowl of rice. How could that happen? I thought with all these safety mechanisms something like that won't happen. I don't know if the spark will survive that, but the battery is definitely gone. It has already a green layer on the contacts.

We assume that the battery could dropped out even though we 've heard the click-noise and the battery was definitely firmly fixed.

Has anybody ever experienced something similar?

Cheers!
Flora

Feel sad about the accident. I would not recommend you use the drone which dropped into the water. Please contact our support and start a case first: http://www.dji.com/support. We would try to help you locate the problem. Thanks for your support.  

DJI Elektra Posted at 2017-11-20 18:27
Feel sad about the accident. I would not recommend you use the drone which dropped into the water. Please contact our support and start a case first: http://www.dji.com/support. We would try to help you locate the problem. Thanks for your support.

Done. It's case number 842482.

floraliberte Posted at 2017-11-20 18:48
Done. It's case number 842482.

Thanks for the update. If you have any doubt, please contact us.

If you want to you can put up your log here it might help find out why this happened.

Just click on link below and follow instructions come back here and post your link

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

http://phantomhelp.com/logviewer/32Z4ZV7QYDTUYKRGJAG8/

Here's the link. Thank you!

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-21 11:42
If you want to you can put up your log here it might help find out why this happened.

Just click on link below and follow instructions come back here and post your link

Now for me with my still limited experience this is really either a big mystery, or a clear falling out of the battery, especially seeing the very short flight duration without any error message at all. Or seeing the location, another bird impact... Really don't know but I trust that hallmark007 might be able to tell you more.

Wachtberger Posted at 2017-11-21 13:30
Now for me with my still limited experience this is really either a big mystery, or a clear falling out of the battery, especially seeing the very short flight duration without any error message at all. Or seeing the location, another bird impact... Really don't know but I trust that hallmark007 might be able to tell you more.

There’s very little flight log here usually when this happens battery could be a problem but at end of flight battery looks fine, but I think there is some log missing just a small piece.

I would say it’s power failure. Right at the end of log you will see 100% throttle and 100% pitch forward this has caused battery failure in some P4Pro . I don’t know if this was the problem but have seen this cause power cut in the past. It’s definitely not OP’s fault this is definitely some kind of malfunction.

One thing I would ask , was battery still on AC when it crashed down.

When we recovered the drone the battery laid right next to the spark. By the way the only thing my Phone told me was "lost video connection" at first I thought it would RTH.

fans898c2c83 Posted at 2017-11-21 14:23
When we recovered the drone the battery laid right next to the spark. By the way the only thing my Phone told me was "lost video connection" at first I thought it would RTH.

If it was right beside your spark then it just came out on impact, this is normal and shows that it was correctly inserted.
Anyway I have tried to loosely insert battery and couldn’t get it to power on so this is not likely to have happened.
I would say this is a warranty problem. Good luck.

It's good that you have opened a support case with DJI already and that you have been able to retrieve your Spark. Next step will probably be to send it in for further check, but this might lead to a good outcome.

OP, what version of firmware you have?

Thanks hallmark and wachtberger I will inform you how DJI responds to my case. They are looking through my flightrecord and my cached video at the moment.

I don't know which number, but it is the newest one with the sphere photos.

djiuser_pvL0b29 Posted at 2017-11-22 11:50
Thanks hallmark and wachtberger  I will inform you how DJI responds to my case. They are looking through my flightrecord and my cached video at the moment.

Your welcome, good luck.

djiuser_pvL0b29 Posted at 2017-11-22 11:50
Thanks hallmark and wachtberger  I will inform you how DJI responds to my case. They are looking through my flightrecord and my cached video at the moment.

I also keep my fingers crossed!

First view of user file analysis program  
cheers
Hans

JJBspark Posted at 2017-11-22 12:39
First view of user file analysis program  
cheers
Hans

Looks interesting, could you kindly further explain?

Wachtberger Posted at 2017-11-22 12:46
Looks interesting, could you kindly further explain?

Hi Wachtberger,

Ofocurse ; trying to make a window based version wich import data *.csv file with few options to make it more clear to users what is happening during a flight. Export to Excel for displaying few graphs.

One mod is to show the compas heading in a 360 format, another is not show data when there is no user input at the RC controls. Thinking for more usefull changes.

Hope to have the beta version ready end of this year.

cheers Hans

JJBspark Posted at 2017-11-22 23:53
Hi Wachtberger,

Ofocurse ; trying to make a window based version wich import data *.csv file with few options to make it more clear to users what is happening during a flight. Export to Excel for displaying few graphs.

Fantastic project!

JJBspark Posted at 2017-11-22 23:53
Hi Wachtberger,

Ofocurse ; trying to make a window based version wich import data *.csv file with few options to make it more clear to users what is happening during a flight. Export to Excel for displaying few graphs.

Good job...

hi everyone,

I have news regarding my drone crash. DJI classified the crash as a warranty case and gave me a 100% Coupon for a new Spark. I am very happy that I'll get a new Spark. Despite that I still don't now what caused the crash and I hope it won't happen again with my new drone.

Thanks everyone and a nice day!
Flora

love to hear that they took care of you.  didn't seem like it took too long either.   

Awesome that they are replacing your aircraft. Good thing you were able to recover it.

Sad to see that DJI can't seem to fix this problem. I was hoping that they had fixed the issue but obviously not. I'm not going to spend any more money on an aircraft that I can't fly with confidence over the water.

Good luck with the new AC!!!

Hi Iam suffering the same, my spark is nearly 8months old, 3days ago my spark started acting wired, not holding altitude and making a noise during flight that can only be described as loss of power and regaining power to hold altitude,
Yesterday I had my spark serviced and DJI service is not cheap,
I was told 2motors may be unbalanced and 2were replaced,
The next day(today) first flight since service and my drone fell out of the sky from 75meters.

Iam damaged like spark,
Help