Spark disconnected and rth initiated but never returned

[Sparksupersonic]

Within the hour. I’m livid. Set h point before flight as I always do, and flew close. It was hardly 200 feet away and was having gps errors and disconnected. I walked in that direction to see if it would get signal back but didn’t. I couldn’t hear it either so I initiated rth with remote, it started beeping but never showed up.
I was in the middle of this flight path and area and should have heard or seen it.
I finally turned off remote after I was certain flight time was up. Flight record shows nothing but where it was last, and I have no idea where to look. Any thoughts?

 

[Sparksupersonic]

Flight record shows pics further out in direction of flight too so was the drone there and the flight path and distance is just inaccurate?

 

[Spark 317]

I'd follow that path. Draw a line along those pictures and search the area beyond the last picture taken. It looks like the Spark was in Atti-mode (with 18 satellites ?) in your first picture so if the Spark was high enough, it was drifting with the wind to the west if north is at the top.

You were 4.5 minutes into the flight so you probably had a about 9 minutes of battery left, keeping the Spark aloft but flying with the wind until the battery got low enough to auto land. Maybe in a tree?

I'm not sure if the RTH works in Atti-mode due to no GPS and the Spark not knowing where home is if it never established a GPS lock again.

Have you tried the "Find my drone" feature on the Go4? It may work. On the top right corner of the Go4 app main screen is a menu with the FMD button.

Good Luck.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

Ty for the response. I had gone to the house where the last pic was and asked to look around and did but it wasn’t there, gave them my phone in case they see it. I checked find my drone and it shows the arrow right where it seems to have dropped signal but that was where I was standing and I know it didn’t land there but I’ll go back anyhow. I’ll follow up on your other suggestions. Ty again.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

Never found it, didn’t even know where to realistically look beyond the immediate area. Find my drone only shows where it was when it disconnected less than 200 feet away. I’ll open a case with dji but not expecting them to do anything to resolve it.
I really enjoyed the spark but makes me think twice about investing in another one or any drone with wifi connection. I know anything can happen with technology but I’m wary after this. Maybe it’s a reason to step up to a better drone like the pro.

 

[windryder]

Sure seems to be a lot of flyaways with the Spark! They are not all pilot errors. When you do everything in preflight and your spark becomes uncontrollable and will not respond to any commands that is not pilot error! I'm afraid of losing my Spark as I have had one flyaway myself! Is DJI looking into this or not. If I would have known about this problem before I bought my Spark, I wouldn't have bought it! I can not afford to watch my spark flyaway, in fact I'm still making payments on it.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

I agree some of them aren’t pilot error. This fly away was as simple as that, the aircraft disconnected and never reconnected and I never saw it again. Good you got yours back when it happened to you. I’m not certain I would have bought it either. I read about flyaways but thought they were earlier software errors that aren’t common lately. Hopefully yours doesn’t fly away a second time. Keep sight of it when flying and maybe put your name and number on it somehow too.

 

[windryder]

I agree some of them aren’t pilot error. This fly away was as simple as that, the aircraft disconnected and never reconnected and I never saw it again. Good you got yours back when it happened to you. I’m not certain I would have bought it either. I read about flyaways but thought they were earlier software errors that aren’t common lately. Hopefully yours doesn’t fly away a second time. Keep sight of it when flying and maybe put your name and number on it somehow too.

I do fly line of sight only and I printed out my information with Reward if found and taped it in the battery compartment. The strange thing when I lost control I was at a park outside of town and only a few people there. 20 minutes before I had flown up to our Water Tower with no problems! I hope you find yours, or someone reports finding it and you get it back.

 

[Virtual1]

Unfortunately it's probably hung up in a tree, I see lots of trees there. Strange that it would lose connection so close? Next time listen to the ATTI warning and don't take off until it has a GPS lock. If you can't GET a gps lock, don't leave line of sight. Cell phone and other radio transmitters are often placed on water towers, so you have to watch out that if you get close you don't lose GPS and possibly visual AND control links due to the powerful radio disruptions. I don't see a tower in that picture though, but if there's a tower nearby, it could have a directional link to another tower somewhere possibly many miles away, and if you're unlucky enough to fly into the path of that transmission, it can disrupt your spark's receiver even at a significant distance from the tower. (microwave links can really snipe you from a distance!)

 

[windryder]

Unfortunately it's probably hung up in a tree, I see lots of trees there. Strange that it would lose connection so close? Next time listen to the ATTI warning and don't take off until it has a GPS lock. If you can't GET a gps lock, don't leave line of sight. Cell phone and other radio transmitters are often placed on water towers, so you have to watch out that if you get close you don't lose GPS and possibly visual AND control links due to the powerful radio disruptions. I don't see a tower in that picture though, but if there's a tower nearby, it could have a directional link to another tower somewhere possibly many miles away, and if you're unlucky enough to fly into the path of that transmission, it can disrupt your spark's receiver even at a significant distance from the tower. (microwave links can really snipe you from a distance!)

Like I stated in my last reply, I flew my spark around the water tower with no problems. The water tower is only used for mounting communication antennas to it so there are several different types of live antennas mounted to the tower! I flew within a couple of feet of the tower and never had a problem! My fly away happened the next time I flew the spark at a park! There are others on You tube that posted videos of their flight around Towers of different kinds. I don't believe that Towers of any type are the problem! I feel that some of the spark drones have a problem with one or more internal components that is causing some of these sparks to fly away. When the drone goes into ATTI mode it should still be controllable, and you should be able to land the drone! When my spark went into ATTI mode it took off as if it was in sport mode, and there was no wind to carry it away. I had no control at all! Also when playing back the flight logs they did not match the flight path that was recorded! The park I was at there were maybe 5 people nothing to interfere with the signal. I always fly with my spark in sight. I do all the preflight steps and wait until home point is set and there is at least 12 sats showing. Maybe these sparks that fly away were manufactured in the same batch! Something is not right with my Spark, and I think that DJI should at least look into the possibility that something is wrong!

 

[EMB]

I was flying my Spark in an industrial park. Flew it into a building, took a few pictures and flew it out. Never more than 30 feet away at any time. I intended to land it when I exited the building. Instead it took off straight up and almost out of site. I looked at the screen and it was asking something like do I want to return... I was in a panic so I can't tell you exactly what it said. It was drifting out of sight as I chased after it. I hit "No" and it stopped. I immediately hit the down stick and it came down and landed.... Almost pissed my pants...
I NEVER had this happen with my Mavic Pro or my Phantom 3 Pro. Lately the Spark doesn't seem to hold steady when I let go of the sticks to take a picture. Way to many postings of fly-a-ways. I going back to a Mavic Pro.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

Ty for the responses. I was reading about another fly away on here and someone mentioned to that person to check the videos in the edit files of the go4 app. I honestly didn’t know it had those.
So I looked at the 30 sec video it made and although it doesn’t show where it landed it does have a view from the flight and the location of this view is in line of flight direction, but maybe 1/4 mile further than the flight record showed it.
I’m assuming the video made by the go4 app could have only been made during the 4 minutes of flight before it disconnected. Correct?
If so the location of my spark that was showing on my phone during the flight itself was a ways off. It wasn’t close as indicated in my phone. Flight record showed it less than 200 feet away while connected.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

Flight record and phone showed spark 200 feet away from takeoff and circling, as I panned for pics, over the x the pic before connection dropped after 4 minutes. Yet this still from video filed on go4 app shows it considerably further. Any thoughts?

 

[Spark 317]

As stated in post #3, the Spark was in Atti-mode floating in the breeze for approximately 9 minutes until the Spark auto landed. Draw a line along the path of the last 4 pictures and look beyond the last picture, not around the house but further away.

If the wind was blowing at 5 mph and floating for 9 minutes, it may have floated 3/4 of a mile from it’s last known location.

With no GPS available to keep the Spark steady, it will keep the same height but float with the wind. The wind may be stronger up at a higher elevation and push the Spark further.

Take a pair of binoculars and look up in the tress past the point of where the picture was taken.

 

[Harlequin66]

Never found it, didn’t even know where to realistically look beyond the immediate area. Find my drone only shows where it was when it disconnected less than 200 feet away. I’ll open a case with dji but not expecting them to do anything to resolve it.
I really enjoyed the spark but makes me think twice about investing in another one or any drone with wifi connection. I know anything can happen with technology but I’m wary after this. Maybe it’s a reason to step up to a better drone like the pro.

I know it's a bit late after the horse has bolted, so to speak, but I got one of those GPS tracking tiles $39 and stuck it on the top in the middle of the props just in case it decides to go AWOL. Hasn't happened as yet...

 

[Sparksupersonic]

I know it's a bit late after the horse has bolted, so to speak, but I got one of those GPS tracking tiles $39 and stuck it on the top in the middle of the props just in case it decides to go AWOL. Hasn't happened as yet...

Hopefully it doesn’t happen to you. My biggest lesson was have a tracker on a drone and if possible don’t fly in urban areas with lots of other signals around.
My next drone will have a tile, and my phone # inside the battery casing.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

As stated in post #3, the Spark was in Atti-mode floating in the breeze for approximately 9 minutes until the Spark auto landed. Draw a line along the path of the last 4 pictures and look beyond the last picture, not around the house but further away.

If the wind was blowing at 5 mph and floating for 9 minutes, it may have floated 3/4 of a mile from it’s last known location.

With no GPS available to keep the Spark steady, it will keep the same height but float with the wind. The wind may be stronger up at a higher elevation and push the Spark further.

Take a pair of binoculars and look up in the tress past the point of where the picture was taken.

Ty! As it was there were only a few places I could look as so many places were yards and houses, but a big wooded area I was able to look in was along the line you mention. Didn’t find it, but at the time I didn’t realize how good that was as a possibility based on all the info I’ve learned from reading. It was in line but my guess is not far enough out. The drone probably went further.
When I’m back on Long Island I still might park in those neighborhoods and stand there and scan the trees with binoculars though. Nothing will look weird about that.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

Unfortunately it's probably hung up in a tree, I see lots of trees there. Strange that it would lose connection so close? Next time listen to the ATTI warning and don't take off until it has a GPS lock. If you can't GET a gps lock, don't leave line of sight. Cell phone and other radio transmitters are often placed on water towers, so you have to watch out that if you get close you don't lose GPS and possibly visual AND control links due to the powerful radio disruptions. I don't see a tower in that picture though, but if there's a tower nearby, it could have a directional link to another tower somewhere possibly many miles away, and if you're unlucky enough to fly into the path of that transmission, it can disrupt your spark's receiver even at a significant distance from the tower. (microwave links can really snipe you from a distance!)

I did get green from gps before I took off, although it was really slow getting it. I almost picked it up to move to a different location before it got the readings. I wouldn’t have taken off it I could set the h point.
There is a big water tower maybe 3/4 a mile from there. But it’s such a crowded island probably lots of signals, but cell reception not certain. Oddly despite the population a lot of that immediate area gets really bad to no cell reception at times.

 

[Sparksupersonic]

Appreciate all the responses.
I’ll be buying another drone this month. I’d still like a spark for its size and cost, but I’m def wanting a pro platinum. Trying to decide whether to just get it and forgo the spark, or just get another the spark since I already have everything I need, and invest in a more expensive drone later. I know most of us have had these delimas. Happy and safe flying.,

 

[Bill Melody]

I know it's a bit late after the horse has bolted, so to speak, but I got one of those GPS tracking tiles $39 and stuck it on the top in the middle of the props just in case it decides to go AWOL. Hasn't happened as yet...

Be careful attaching any type of locator to the top of the spark. The Sparks GPS receiver antenna is almost dead center, slightly to the rear of center. Placing anything above the GPS receiver can attenuate the satellite signal causing loss of GPS and switching to ATTI mode. The WiFI antennas are located on the sides of the Spark. Only safe place would be under the Spark on the battery.