Amazon Drone Crashes Raise Concerns
Recent reports indicate that Amazon’s advanced delivery drones experienced crashes during test flights in December, attributed to software updates that made them susceptible to rain.
Two MK30 drones went down in Oregon just days apart on December 16th. Bloomberg News covered the incidents, noting that the autonomous drones might have mistakenly landed, which led to an automatic shutdown of the propellers mid-flight.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted an investigation and found that the issues stemmed from Lidar readings that were negatively affected by adjustments in the software, which heightened the sensors’ sensitivity to rain.
The NTSB stated that the drone lost power due to a misjudged altitude reading from the new software, leading to the mistaken belief that it had landed.
Additionally, Amazon appears to have removed a backup “squat switch,” commonly used in earlier models, which might have played a role in the crashes, according to sources speaking with Bloomberg.
This absence of a failsafe likely contributed to the incidents, and Amazon’s response to the claims was firm.
Spokesperson Kate Kudrna described the Bloomberg report as misleading, asserting that the idea of replacing one system with another inadvertently causing an accident is reckless.
Kudrna highlighted that Amazon has integrated “multiple sensor inputs” to mitigate the risk of false readings, and emphasized that the MK30 drones are more reliable and compliant with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standards than previous versions.
This incident represents another obstacle in Amazon’s long-running attempt to establish comprehensive drone delivery services, a project initially announced by former CEO Jeff Bezos in 2013. It was touted as a revolutionary stride, enabling packages to arrive within 30 minutes.
Bezos had confidently predicted that packages would be delivered by drone within five years, yet that goal remains unfulfilled.
The drone program has been plagued by delays, technical malfunctions, and regulatory hurdles. A crash in Pendleton, Oregon, in 2021 even sparked a fire at the test site, while the December incidents led to a temporary halt in testing.
Last year, the mayor of College Station, Texas—a town near Houston—raised concerns with the FAA over noise from Amazon drones. However, a company representative mentioned that no noise complaints have surfaced since the MK30’s introduction.
After receiving FAA approval for a new altitude detection system, Amazon resumed flight operations in March.
The MK30, which has replaced the MK27 model, can travel at speeds of up to 67 mph and deliver packages within a radius of 7.5 miles.
Critics are wary that the shift away from physical failsafe mechanisms toward software solutions might reflect a broader industry trend, prioritizing cost and weight reduction.
Currently, drone deliveries are limited to the College Station and Greater Phoenix areas, although expansion plans are in place for markets such as Kansas City, Dallas, San Antonio, the UK, and Italy.
Despite some progress, the drone delivery initiative is still far from realizing Bezos’ initial vision of a logistics system powered by drones.
