Two Amazon Delivery Drones Crash Into Crane In Arizona (cnbc.com) 46
Two Amazon Prime Air drones collided with a crane in Tolleson, Arizona near 96th Avenue and Roosevelt Street. Amazon confirmed the incident and is working with authorities to determine what happened, though no injuries have been reported. CNBC reports: The incident occurred on Wednesday around 1 p.m. EST in Tolleson, Arizona, a city west of Phoenix. Two MK30 drones crashed into the boom of a stationary construction crane that was in a commercial area just a few miles away from an Amazon warehouse. One person was evaluated on the scene for possible smoke inhalation, said Sergeant Erik Mendez of the Tolleson Police Department.
Both drones sustained "substantial" damage from the collision on Wednesday, which occurred when the aircraft were mid-route, according to preliminary FAA crash reports. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident. The drones were believed to be flying northeast back-to-back when they collided with the crane that was being used for roof work on a distribution facility, Tolleson police said in a release. The drones landed in the backyard of a nearby building, according to the release.
Both drones sustained "substantial" damage from the collision on Wednesday, which occurred when the aircraft were mid-route, according to preliminary FAA crash reports. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident. The drones were believed to be flying northeast back-to-back when they collided with the crane that was being used for roof work on a distribution facility, Tolleson police said in a release. The drones landed in the backyard of a nearby building, according to the release.
MK30 (Score:3)
The MK30 drone looks quite big (as tall as a human). I wonder how many of these are flying around, and what the projections are for this number.
Porch pirates (Score:2)
But if they fly low enough, I bet you could take one out with a water hose. Of one of these [netgun.com].
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I'm not a crack user but if I see these "drones" near my property I'm going after them with 12 gauge shotgun. I don't care if that's illegal. Prove I was the shooter.
Easy. Just check the numerous cameras and sensors the drones use. Since this is beta testing they will be logging all the raw data.
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I don't care if that's illegal. Prove I was the shooter.
Firing at aircraft is a felony. You'll be wearing orange within a week, And you will very quickly lose the right to possess a shotgun or any firearm ever again.
The drones have live video feeds, and any crash would be investigated thoroughly by the authorities who will very quickly find the evidence that the thing has been shot at and by whom.
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I predict there are crackheads thinking about EMPs right now
Sure, we can see them posting to slashdot.
Stupid is as stupid does (Score:4)
Delivering by drone is the dumbest thing ever. Glad to see it's working out as expected. Today cranes, tomorrow planes.
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> What advantage does a human pilot offer in the situation of package delivery?
They can drive a quiet electric vehicle with 500 times more cargo weight?
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What advantage does a human pilot offer in the situation of package delivery? I don't think there is any.
How many human pilots would miss a crane? These things were clearly programmed for a route, and nobody was bright enough to put in some form of exception for un-mapped obstacles. Humans don't need an exception, we have eyes and reactions to objects as big as a crane sitting in our path.
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It makes sense for rural areas with rough or winding roads. If something goes wrong, there's not a lot to kill, other than sheep. They could fly around small towns to avoid population.
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This is not proven an issue with the drone until they finish the investigation. It may very well be the crane ended up lacking the proper beacons to identify the hazard to aviation.
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Waiting for Amazone's Blue Origin rocket delivery.
There's a loud *WHUMP!* from front yard and at the bottom of the smoking crater, your squashed package with your new colander and salad tongs.
Pre-test for You Crane (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pre-test for You Crane (Score:5, Funny)
Well it now has a proven record for being able to hit infrastructure, can probably sell them to Ukraine..
Better Ukraine than my crane. *Ba-dmp-Bump!*
Re: Pre-test for You Crane (Score:2)
... Or Russia, or Poland, or anyone actually.
News? (Score:3)
when they collided with the crane that was being used for roof work on a distribution facility
The TV news carried this story, along with an aerial view of the "construction site". In addition, I drilled down through TFA and found the site: A United Rentals parking lot. Which agreed with the TV news: Three cranes parked side by side, raised to full height.The man-lift type crane.
I'm not sure what the FAA regs say about leaving these things parked and raised up like that. On the other hand, I'm not sure if the Amazon site qualifies for any special air rights as would a cargo airport or heliport.
Re:News? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they're governed anything like amateur radio antenna masts/towers are, the FAA only gets involved when the structure reaches something like 200'.
And regardless, the drone should not hit things. It needs to detect obstructions and avoid them. That it didn't detect a metal structure that was not moving says some rather bad things about the flight control system of the drone.
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Like Tesla, they don't use lidar for obstacle navigation and rely solely on cameras.
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That seems incredibly short-sighted. I could sort of see why there might be issues with some kind of active emissions system at ground level due to sheer noise at ground level, but up in the sky one would expect that any signals would be uncluttered enough to be incredibly reliable.
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It doesn't matter if signals are cluttered. You send out the pings with a signal. You only act on reflections with a matching signal.
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It does seem that the drones were flying very low. I wonder what the reason for that was.
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If they're governed anything like amateur radio antenna masts/towers are, the FAA only gets involved when the structure reaches something like 200'.
And regardless, the drone should not hit things. It needs to detect obstructions and avoid them. That it didn't detect a metal structure that was not moving says some rather bad things about the flight control system of the drone.
The bolded part. As a pilot it is your responsibility to see and avoid. The person flying the drone, or the company computer flying it, has the responsibility to see and avoid an obstacle, and other aircraft. Failure to do that should ground the entire fleet... until it can be shown WHY it happened and HOW the company will prevent a recurrence. Best to figure this out now before it hits a helicopter or an airplane.
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I'm not sure what the FAA regs say about leaving these things parked and raised up like that.
Amazon can't afford less-stupid shilling than that?
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.Flying objects that can't detect stationary obstacles that size shouldn't be flying.
Human-piloted aircraft cannot reliably detect them either. Unless the cranes have proper markings and lighting, they can be very difficult to see from the air and are a menace to all aviation, not just drones. On the other hand; Human-piloted aircraft would also not be flying that low other than during takeoff or landing. Formerly only structures more than 200' above ground had to be specially marked and lighted, b
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The drones were obviously not equipped with the latest system: Maneuvering Augmentation for Going Over Objects (MAGOO).
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Yep, they were boom lifts, not cranes. If the drones don't have any kind of active avoidance system then it kind of seems like Amazon should have put an exclusion zone around that rental lot, knowing that these were frequently going to be there.
amazon will pay zero and some DSP that does not ha (Score:2)
amazon will pay zero and some DSP that does not have funds to pay out will just have to fold
Re:amazon will pay zero and some DSP that does not (Score:4, Interesting)
We have a startup testing drone deliveries in our Silicon Valley suburbia area. Some days it gets quite annoying with a drone flying every few minutes.
My concern is that all these "AI" powered drones are actually rather dumb as demonstrated with them fly into unplanned static objects such as this crane. Once multiple companies service an area, I expect drones collisions to become common. In the case that two drones, from 2 companies collide and fall onto our roof, who will pay to fix the damages? Will we need to sue both companies? Will we be forced to allow them on my property to retrieve their drones and packages? I'm afraid that it will take a lot of homeowners grief before regulation catches up.
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We have a startup testing drone deliveries in our Silicon Valley suburbia area. Some days it gets quite annoying with a drone flying every few minutes.
My concern is that all these "AI" powered drones are actually rather dumb as demonstrated with them fly into unplanned static objects such as this crane. Once multiple companies service an area, I expect drones collisions to become common. In the case that two drones, from 2 companies collide and fall onto our roof, who will pay to fix the damages? Will we need to sue both companies? Will we be forced to allow them on my property to retrieve their drones and packages? I'm afraid that it will take a lot of homeowners grief before regulation catches up.
In America? Not only will the homeowner be responsible for fixing any damage to their own property if two drones crash onto their roof, they'll also likely get to pay for any damage done to the drones, as there would be no way to prove that the drones crashed into each other, and the company law teams will be adamant that someone other than the companies must be responsible.
EST? (Score:2)
Why would they quote the time of the incident in EST, when it occurred in Arizona, and EDT is currently in effect. Or did they actually mean EST and just don't know the difference?
How could this happen? (Score:5, Insightful)
The FAA has not yet finished working on part 108 (flight beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)) of its regulations for drones. This means that right now all drone operations must be done within visual line of sight of the operator or by a special waiver. One of the conditions of part 108 is that drones must have a "detect and avoid" capability that would prevent this sort of incident from happening -- so how did it happen?
If the drone was being flown by visual line of sight then the operator should have seen something as big as a crane.
If it was being flown under a waiver and the FAA has already mandated "detect and avoid" as a requirement for BVLOS then someone wasn't complying with the terms of the waiver.
And all for what -- so your tube-socks will arrive 15 minutes faster?
I have been a part of the drone community and industry for more than 15 years and I can tell you that B2C drone deliveries, outside of a few specific cases, will never become practical. The likes of Amazon and Google are far more interested in the data they can scoop up by flying drones over urban/residential areas than they are in actually delivering stuff. They also both realize that the *real* money will be made from creating a UTM (unmanned traffic management) system which is like ATC for drones. Both these companies are very much into infrastructure provision and the UTM that will be needed for large-scale drone operations is the perfect target for their expansion.
Don't be fooled, "drone delivery" is just a diversion while they prepare their UTM plans and claim that "we have more experience than anyone in drone traffic management". Despite that experience, Amazon has a record of setting stuff on fire and crashing into cranes while Google's Wing craft have been known to black out wide areas after performing "precautionary landings" on high-voltage power lines.
If a kid can't fly their 250g drone in a park without all sorts of tests and a digital angle-bracelet in the form of "Remote ID" then clearly this tech is way to dangerous to have giant delivery drones laden with god-knows-what falling from the skies across our cityscape.
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Yeah that they can't avoid a crane seems pretty crazy. Not only that, but if two hit the same crane it suggest they pretty much just flying precision matched routes - which in itself seems a bit dump for exactly this reason (airline pilots routinely will add or subtract a few 10s of feet from the allocated flight level).
Also, these companies have been working on drones for over a decade at this point. How is it that they cannot avoid hitting a large stationary object approaching from dead ahead? This seems
Re:How could this happen? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been a part of the drone community and industry for more than 15 years and I can tell you that B2C drone deliveries, outside of a few specific cases, will never become practical.
Practicality has no relevance. Nor does logic or reason. The only thing that matters is if it can be done profitably. Unless these things crash often enough to lose the parent company millions, perhaps billions, in lawsuits and such, it's going to become commonplace. Because they've found a way to make money not only on the delivery charges, but also, as you point out, on the data gathering and likely selling after the fact.
This is, after all, the age of Greed as God. And profit *MUST* come before all other concerns.
When the capitalists replace you with robots (Score:1)
Who's gonna have a job paying money to buy stuff?
They always wanted slaves, as we wont tolerate that, they'll build them.
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- blame China - blame DEI - blame the boogey man
Someone must have a bingo card drawn up for this by now, or even a drinking game.
Ultimately, it'll be Biden's fault, probably as a proxy for Obama, while Hillary's emails cheered them on from the sidelines.