Edit: Nevermind. I'm not awake yet. this logic does not compute. please ignore
"Something went wrong with the drone. Send another!"
And it looks much safer than Amazon's approach of directly landing the heavy drone in your garden.
That being said, drone delivery will not really become a thing unless the endurance issue is resolved, like a new breakthrough battery technology that gives you at least 4 hours flight time (hybrid drones are noisy), as for any drone to have a proper impact, it should have three items checked: endurance, payload, and range. The last two are pretty much resolved by having modular payloads and flying over the internet, the first one is still pending.
Edit: The Internet tells me that delivery drones fly at 40-60mp/h which is much faster than I assumed and makes the 3-4 hour window even more surprising to me.
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Edit: per below was actually a crane
https://cf.cdn.uplynk.com/ause1/slices/14f/5c3d34b8b29a45469...
EDIT: NM, it was a crane after all.
Boom lifts, available in various models such as mini scissor lifts for sale, spider lifts, and tracked scissor lifts, offer excellent mobility, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness for many tasks. Cranes, on the other hand, are essential for heavy lifting and large-scale projects.
I also learned that "spider lifts" look like something a bad guy drives in a sci-fi movie.
It's so convenient to ignore too!
> Our approval includes the ability to fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight, using our sophisticated on-board detect and avoid system. This is an historic, first-of-its-kind approval for a new drone system and a new operating location following a rigorous FAA evaluation of the safety of our systems and processes.
It's true the FAA would have had to have signed off on these so that will be interesting.
Even with all the gear, an unpredictable 80 lb object hurtling towards you is a major problem. Not to mention becoming a problem for any standing below.
Certainly harnesses and other safety gear are much more common in many situations.
Was working for a construction guy I overall respected, and he had us going up on a 3-story barn roof without any kind of roped-in protection. Although I was a fairly experienced rock climber (or perhaps because of it), I quit at lunch.
I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to have the backup finances to be able to afford to quit.
It does seem best when using lag bolts to secure such an anchor to the roof but even when not screwed to the roof should provide some level of fall safety.
“I will not be hit by an 80 pound flying missile” is a reasonable expectation for construction workers
When I was a roofer, I think we might have used safety lines and harnesses twice, when the pitch was too steep.
Whether or not it's true, if significant numbers of crews believe this they won't be wearing harnesses on low roofs.
At a leisurely 3 mi/h, wolfram alpha gives this amusing comparison: about 0.36 times the momentum of an American football player moving at a speed of 1 m/s.
With the appropriate amount of sarcasm: the Mayflower included several variations of "stock" and countless untold mistakes in the wake! We surely beat those Soviets and Socialism, gosh darn it. Just don't pay attention to the social fabric or what the CIA has done. Nevermind the particularly Aryan scientists, where we found them, or what might happen when they get fat/bored/lazy and procreate. We need The Bomb.
Long way to say the absurdity is the joke/point.
The fact that two different drones crashed into the same object raises even more serious questions on the quality of Amazon’s tech and their ability to safely monitor it.
God: "Hold my staff"
I don't know that amazon engineers should be expected to see e.g. a moving small steel cable under tension.
That and customers are required to select safe delivery drop zones.
I would like to see better "oh shit we're crashing let's try not to kill anyone" protection, e.g. research on improving controlled landings on damaged drones. Maybe refusal to deliver if there are any detected humans in the drop zone (which may well already exist).
Sounds like the anamoly here was a very unsafe landing zone (which is outside the customer agreement as it happens).
small steel cables take out human pilots too..
Would be really curious how they might guard against adversarial drone deliveries. Kinda weird to have end users basically piloting your $100K (I'm guessing) vehicles.
Wires are somewhere between hard and not possible to see, visually. The "fix" for this might be "that kinda looks like it might be construction over there, go around".
I work with 3d scanning lidar every day and I know this as a fact.
They have no excuse there.
Are there any commercial drones that do it "right", with LIDAR?
'It's unclear if' is a phrase that paints a brilliant picture of an organ's journalistic standing.
It means there's no information either way, what follows is pure speculation, probably false, but the author can put whatever idea they want in our heads, since they've prefaced that it 'may or may not be the case'.
It's unclear if the drones had malicious intent. It's unclear if the author was sober while writing and free of criminal record.
But seriously, the article text doesn't follow up with any speculation and highlights it is a developing story. According to the latest news on TV, someone actually was insured and is now at the hospital. The details are still unclear however. This is very based reporting for the world we currently live in and I would like to see more news stations follow this style instead of jumping to conclusions.
Ranting about deeper meaning of the words in such a minimal bulletin is nonsensical.
Seriously, why is this downvoted?
Perhaps I should change the way I read HN.
PS: I just searched, and indeed there is a lot of talk about incidents around drones. But what I mean is talk about the technology used in these drones. For example, how do you send a video feed through a kilometers long fiber optic cable that is cheap to produce and lightweight? These are the kind of questions I'm interested in.
With tens of thousands of guyed towers in the United States, that's a bad omission.
* No one was injured directly, but someone was treated for smoke inhalation
* The drones "were flying back to back"
* They hit the cable of a crane (including a link to a video showing the crane). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ZpY6qHcTk
I'm mildly amused by this. It's an open air environment, did someone go stand over one of the crashed drones as it burst into flames and just, breathed deep? Glad they got treatment, plastic smoke is gross.
Also wow, the drones are massive, and apparently flying so low they will hit cranes putting things on single story buildings? That's so stupid.
Dear tech world: Please do not fly 80 pound projectiles just a few feet above my head at speed. Jeeze.
Don't hold your breath waiting on the US government to give a shit about death and destruction of its people. Let the industry discover the tech and capitalist forces dictate safety, around 2060 we can start having serious conversations about drone safety.
To any of the aspiring Ralph Nader's of the drone industry out there, thank you for your service in advance.
https://www.regulations.gov/document/FAA-2025-1908-0023
You can select a few comments at random and quickly find a pattern: people are concerned that the drones everywhere except in the densest of areas do not have to see where they are going. If they hit a manned aircraft it's the manned aircraft's fault and the drone operator has no legal liability. Does that sound like something FAA employees wrote themselves? How much motivation will be there to "iteratively refine" when they have no legal liability and even admitting that a possible improvement exists would create legal liability?
It's true in this one. Companies will design drones that comply with the very detailed regulations and go no further the same way car companies don't put seatbelts, airbags, or auto-brake devices into cars unless forced. The drone regulations are nearly done. Any further changes may take an act of congress.
So it's not as bad as "they don't see cranes". But it absolutely raises the question of whether they can see cables, whether hanging from cranes or spanning telephone poles.
And honestly, cables are really hard to see in the air. That's literally why high-voltage power lines hang those big red-orange marker balls on them for pilots to see.
Genuinely curious what the solution here is. Hard-code some logic to identify cranes and always assume there's a cable dangling from the end? Never fly underneath anything? Implement some kind of specialized detection for thin cables if that's possible?
For the sake of clarity: I am not arguing against your point, nor am I defending Amazon or the tech in any way shape or form.
For concrete numbers, I would say stay 50 yards away from construction equipment, and always laterally or above, not below. Honestly these drones are enormous so I think "don't go under" can just be a blanket rule. They can't be going under trees or bridges or overpasses either, they're too big.
Edit: Also, the drones themselves should be far enough apart that if one crashes the other has time to react and stop or change course. I don't have a concrete number there, it depends on their speed and acceleration, but they shouldn't be flying so close that if one crashes they all will.
Both of these allow healthy margins of error, whether that error is from a human pilot or ATC, or from computer systems - either in the vehicle or the ground.
I'd argue these would be a great place to start for drone aviation.
If such limits make drone burrito or toilet paper delivery expensive, that seems fine.
The world record holder for a quadcopter drone is 224 mph. Not many drones can beat 100 mph.
According to one article I found Amazons drones can manage 50mph.
Do you know what are the rules for helicopters in a city? That seems like a closer analogue.
It would make sense for a quadcopter to follow helicopter rules. Obviously it does not follow the "without hazard" requirement if you crash into cables, though.
I’d agree the helicopter rules seem most appropriate, though I guess I’d still feel like that would still rule out operating anywhere near a building under construction.
That said, a regular helicopter that suffers a loss of power or other fault, still has options like autorotation to at least attempt a landing without killing anyone on the ground. Do drones have any equivalent ? I.e. if battery is below x% it returns to safe landing spot?
I don't know how drones are programmed, but landing immediately if the battery gets low certainly sounds like a sensible precaution. Electric motors might be reliable enough that you don't have to worry about gracefully handling failure of those. I hope so, because I don't think a quadcopter has much hope if any motor fails.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-91#p-91.119(a)
The catch all under both regulations is anything that's "careless and wreckless"
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-107#p-107.23
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-91.13
Was this particular operation careless and wreckless? Could be.
Someone else in the thread said the weather conditions included mist. I'm skeptical misty conditions also permits a minimum 3 miles of visibility, but what do I know I'm just a pilot.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-107#p-107.51(c)
But also, it's possible the waiver I assume Amazon is operating under could include visibility. I assume this because Part 107 requires visual line of sight operation, but Amazon's operation sounds like beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). I don't know anything about that. I'd like to think the waiver and the operating requirements are public information, but I don't know that either.
For drones, there's a different set of FAA (and possibly state) rules.
The template for this ofc is how we handle (or don't handle) the danger posed by people inside cars, to people outside cars. In aviation we will do a lot to avoid even one death, in the air or on the ground. But in cars we mostly don't give a crap. It took decades for drunk driving to become unacceptable, but outside of that, we are still pretty ok with death by car. The only survivor of the collision just has to claim the person outside the vehicle "darted" and we all shrug and move on.
I would just love it if we could apply lessons of the past to new technology. Instead we just hand wave it all away. Then in a few decades, if enough people die and their surviving loved ones invest enough time & energy, maybe we'll make a few tweaks to the formula.
So no, we don't need 5nm separations for 20 lb drones. But we do need some sort of structure that recognizes the people under them didn't sign up to be part of the beta test. For bonus points it should also recognize that externalities exist and should be priced but I am not holding my breath.
The police is not qualified to investigate this. The only people that should be investigating is people who understand the code that the drones run.
Accidents will happen as long as we, as a society, agree and desire to have new tech. The investigations and bug fixes should be left to people who understand the tech.
"The NTSB will retain far more employees than during prior shutdowns when it had to furlough 90% or more of its workers. In 2019, the agency did not send investigators to 22 accidents because of the funding lapse. But it made the case to White House budget officials that it needed more personnel for critical functions."
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/faa-would-fur...
The FAA does not have the expertise to diagnose this.
This honestly seems like the obvious approach. Even if we suppose you have perfect sensors flying underneath something still means something might be dropped on you... why risk it when you can just fly above it?
It would be interesting to see what comes out of this investigation. Hopefully the injured person will be alright.
Wasn't this problem solved thousands of years ago by euclid?
But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings? That must be half the near-term market for these kinds of drones: people in dense, urban areas well-served by local droneports, who are looking for convenience above all else.
If you can't safely manage urban canyons—you can't manage. It'd be like selling self-driving cars that are only approved for private racetracks.
Here's a curious article I read the other day, that underscores the market factor:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45445406 ("What It Takes to Get Lunch Delivered to the 70th Floor in a Shenzhen Skyscraper (nytimes.com)" / "An informal network of last-mile runners close the gap between harried delivery drivers and hungry office workers in a Shenzhen skyscraper")
Maybe asking the obvious, do you need to? Why not drop the package downstairs, people can use the elevator like normal people? Assuming there is some sort of hand-off with identification.
You can pretty naturally extend this once you have self-driving vans.
I think Amazon has a proprietary version of this in some parts of the US, but at least where I live, the lockers are a car drive away, which defeats the purpose.
Seemed to work well enough for the times I used it. Honestly though I really valued the time to take a break and go for a walk and have lunch away from sitting at my desk.
(Of course you can still choose to have them delivered to your door, but I find the delivery people don't ring the doorbell and then mark the delivery as missed, even with instructions to leave the package in front of the door. But that's a separate issue.)
Still it would be silly to deliver through the window. The rooftop might make more sense (can just drop off package and not accessible to random people on the street).
Elevators, dumbwaiters, baskets and pulleys, or just go downstairs and get it yourself.
Also, how tall are we talking? Where have you been where the upper floor windows actually open?
edit: the more that I think about this, the more it bothers me. Getting close enough to a building to deliver a package through a window with a drone sounds incredibly improbable and dangerous. A small gust of wind and the drone crashes into the building. You'd need some kind of pad at a distance from the building, or use the roof. Looks like there's a design for that[1].
And what if a package or drone falls from such a height?
I think the concept on its face is flawed, but then again, this exists[2].
Entirely defeats the purpose of ordering food.
It shouldn't be necessary to hardcore such things if the goal is to build something resembling intelligence.
Of course for a drone it might be more feasible to do so though.
Although I hear that Tesla is thinking about using AI for decision making as well, which I find quite scary. Frankly I think it’s safer if vehicles don’t have concepts and intelligence, and just follow the rules.
Also, It’s sad to see GOFAI being called “rules” :)
I don't think they will take away their license, but AMZN should have to explain exactly how their drones managed to crash by flying themselves under an obstruction twice in a row.
Long-distance transmission wires are sometimes inspected with helicopters, so I guess there are exceptions and protocols, but outside those, flying machines just aren't supposed to fly near cables except for explicit intent to catch them. Especially across or under. You may only approach in slow parallel motions and/or back off.
The only safe system is for aircraft to avoid wires.
So no, not a dumb idea according to the FAA's data backed study, the US military, and the people that operate helicopters.
In recent years they’ve been moving to drones for this job. Besides improving safety, drones allow increased inspection frequency and reduce costs.
Ironically, one exception is flying within 400ft of a structure, as you can then go up to the top of the structure and 400ft above that point.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HFzRTRcjiqg
Also of note, this isn't the first double-failure issue for the MK30 - they had an issue last year at their test facility where their LIDAR malfunctioned in the same way on two drones in the same weather condition (misting), the drones believed they were at 0.0AGL and powered down in flight.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/amazon-re...
There are situations where aircraft and wires might come in close proximity. It's more accurate to say that be default we keep them way the hell away from each other, we make exceptions for special circumstances, and the exceptions tend to seem far more conservative than you would guess.
Probably this one. Even if the drone sees the crane, there's no guarantee the cable won't move faster than the drone can react.
no fly zones around construction sites?
Obviously that wouldn't work for a crane though...
At the risk of stating the obvious, the drone shouldn't be flying anywhere near the crane. It's an active construction zone with a structure that moves and swings about in unpredictable ways with people and equipment moving about below. It shouldn't be delivering to the construction zone, and if it can't figure out how to stay out of the area, it doesn't belong in the sky.
There are some FAA requirements about cranes/temporary structures that would give pilots an appropriate NOTAM, but I don't know if all cranes require this. That said, I'd argue that if it isn't tall enough to require notifying the FAA, the drone is flying too low.
Maybe the solution is not to cheap out by trying to squeeze every possible cent out of package delivery and pay to keep humans in the loop.
Should the drone's vision be comparable to a humans though? I feel like drones can either see or don't. If we go and try to tackle every corner case then nothing would come of it.
Also, do I - as a citizen - have to bear the externalities of Amazon's beta testing?
> Genuinely curious what the solution here is
Walk to the store to get your package.
14 CFR 107 covers visual line of sight commercial UAS operations. My two cents is the operator should fly around or over and well clear of the crane. They're given a wide latitude. If within 400' of a structure, they can fly up to 400' above the highest point of that structure.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-107#p-107.51(b)
However, it seems probable these operations are BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight), which requires a waiver from the FAA. In which case most of 107.205 applies. I'm not sure if the operating agreement between Amazon and FAA is public information.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-107#p-107.205
Avoiding structures is pretty basic to operational control and responsibility. The fact they hit a seemingly obvious and avoidable structure, the ensuing loss of control being inevitable, which can (and in this case did) lead to on the ground injuries. Pretty remarkable operational failure in my opinion.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-107#p-107.23(a)
We’ve completed our own internal review of this incident and are confident that there wasn’t an issue with the drones or the technology that supports them, Terrence Clark, an Amazon spokesperson told CNN. Nonetheless, we’ve introduced additional processes like enhanced visual landscape inspections to better monitor for moving obstructions such as cranes.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/02/us/arizona-amazon-drones-cras...
I work with 3d scanning lidar every day and I know this as a fact.
They have no excuse there.
What stupid crane flies into the path of delivery drones ? /s
I feel like soon kids will order the cheapest thing on Amazon for the free drone it comes with.
I can't seem to locate any NOTAMs indicating the presence of the crane. There are NOTAMs for a crane to the NNW of KGRY (Phoenix Goodyear Airport) but Tolleson is to the east of that airport.
Is there a hole in how we're doing NOTAMs if we're expecting to have UAS operating at low altitude away from airports?
Also, what other obstacle data is available? I know the US Gov't aviation maps depict significant man made structures that stick up like towers, windmills, and larger buildings. However, when you look at the NY Heli map, it's clear that not every building in Manhattan is depicted. These are generally low enough that a helo would be operating in see-and-avoid (VFR).
Perhaps there is a new market available for this navigation data...
Also, I dont think any of the equipment in this scene needs to be advertised to aircraft. None of this stuff is taller than a normal tree and we aren't filing NOTAMs for the presence of every public park, right?
China hasn't had much general aviation. There are very few private aircraft. So there was nothing like the US's FAA Flight Service Stations. Plans to change that started in 2018, as a new design, mostly automated. That system also handles drones above 120 meters, or is supposed to.
[1] https://businessaviation.aero/evtol-news-and-electric-aircra...
Shipping end: [1]
Receiving end: [2]
Delivery is to a box like an Amazon delivery box. Here's the current list of delivery locations and how to use the app to order.[3] Weight limit 2.3kg. Delivery time 15 minutes.
It's still rather limited. You can't have a delivery platform on your balcony yet. Mostly they deliver to parks and big open plazas.
The Shenzhen city administration seems to be very drone-friendly. There are delivery drones. Advertising drones. Light show drones. Police drones.
[1] https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/R...
[2] https://wp.technologyreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/m...
[3] https://shenzhentimes.com/how-to-order-takeout-by-drone-in-s...
Australia gets a lot of Chinese student pilots.
very nice equipment before it was smashed to smithereens.
it's rare to get a glimpse into this stuff internally. Similarly I wish Doordash would show what the Dot looks like under the bonnet so I don't need to wait for the inevitable collision pictures.
The technical side of this emerging consumer-facing robotics thing just fascinates the hell out of me.
One drone says to the other:
“They’ll do anything to stop us from unionizing”
The other responds:
“I just got put on PIP too…”
The solution here is not more NOTAMs or specific hazard detection; the solution is having commercial drones get the hell out of other people's property (i.e. very low altitudes) and safely share the rest of the airspace with existing users.
One obvious solution is to ditch drone delivery entirely. It's not a foregone conclusion that we must deliver trinkets by drone.
neom•4mo ago
oofbey•4mo ago
I bet it has to be a confluence of factors. I hope Amazon reports openly what went wrong. FAA should demand it. Will be a very interesting report if we ever get to read it.
testplzignore•4mo ago
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neom•4mo ago
(my degree is in digital imaging technology so, fun thinking problems for me :)
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