The dropper supports the contact wire and is attached using various types of dropper clips on the catenary. Droppers are subject to mechanical stress from buckling during the passage of pantographs. In order to investigate failure causes for the high speed line dropper, theoretical analyses and experiments have been carried out. In this paper, mathematical formulas are derived for the pre-sag of the dropper static load. The measured values in the experiment were similar to the theoretical predictions. To analyze the cause on fracture of dropper wire, we have conducted analysis such as SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) of fractured specimens in the field and new specimens. Finally, we performed measurement for the variation of dynamic load on the dropper when a pantograph moved at 300km/h under the Korean high speed overhead line. If such mechanical load occur repeatedly with every passing pantograph, it is possible that the dropper wire will break due to fatigue. This results will be used for special management of high speed catenary system maintenance and life estimation of dropper.