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Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

abc15.com

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Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#131

Post by gpm »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. 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 thos…

> Never fly underneath anything?

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?

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#132

Post by jahsome »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #128
jahsome wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious what you'd define "nearby" and "well clear" as in concrete numbers. 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.

In non-drone aviation, we require vehicles to be separated from each other by 5 nautical miles horizontally and 2,000 feet vertically. Additionally every area of the planet they fly over has an MSA figure - Minimum Safe Altitude - which is supposed to guarantee 1000 feet clearance over any obstacles or terrain. Both of these allow healthy margins of error, whether that error is from a human pilot or ATC, or from comp…

Just what I was looking for. Thanks for the context!

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#133

Post by bri3d »

djtriptych wrote: post #126
crazygringo wrote: post #102

To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. 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 thos…

For commercial deliveries I would expect them to designate a landing zone guaranteed to be free of obstacles vertically. I'm guessing that installing radar detailed enough to see swinging cables is nearly impossible.

mmWave radar is commonly used for detecting (horizontal) cables of similar thickness in a very common use of enterprise drones: power line inspection.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#134

Post by JCM9 »

dheera wrote: post #125
crazygringo wrote: post #102

To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. 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 thos…

"The Tolleson Police Department is investigating" 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 Feds will quickly arrive and take over. Aviation issues are Federal matters. The only role of local law enforcement and emergency response is to provide any first aid and then secure the scene for the Feds. Unless lives are at risk local police shouldn’t even touch anything. They put up yellow tape around the scene and keep it secure until the FAA and/or NTSB arrive.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#135

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. 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 thos…

[deleted]

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#136

Post by idontwantthis »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. 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 thos…

The fact that these things are flying without rock solid “avoid this giant fucking thing” logic is asinine. The solution is don’t fly like a child playing a flight sim for the first time. Don’t zip around anything let alone construction cranes. Use common sense flight paths, decks and ceilings like everything else in the air.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#137

Post by BobaFloutist »

djtriptych wrote: post #127
JCM9 wrote: post #34

Flying in uncontrolled airspace in VMC is a “see and avoid” environment, meaning this looks like a pretty bad screw up by Amazon. 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.

Two drones doesn't really mean anything if they were following a similar flight plan to make a delivery at the same location right?

It means it wasn't a fluke or a bug specific to one drone, but something wrong in the overall software approach.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#138

Post by atm3ga »

dheera wrote: post #125
crazygringo wrote: post #102

To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. 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 thos…

"The Tolleson Police Department is investigating" 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.

I'm not sure why this is getting down voted. Indeed, the FAA is the correct investigating body here as the local police department has no jurisdiction over aviation accidents. They should have immediately called in the FAA to investigate.

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#139

Post by m-schuetz »

crazygringo wrote: post #102

To be clear, they crashed into the vertical cable hanging down from the end of the crane. Not into the structure of the crane itself. 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 thos…

Aerial Lidar is pretty good at detecting power line cables. Power line mapping is a major use case for it. However, that's in large part because at the scan distance, the beam already has quite a big diameter that is likely to hit the cable. Maybe a higher beam radius scanner could work out for close-distance cable detection

Re: Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ

#140

Post by BobaFloutist »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #111
ajmurmann wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the information we have about the actual incident, it seems you'd only be at risk of that happening if you were as thin as a cable.

If it runs into the cable and tumbles down on you, it's a very real risk.

Or if you're being suspended by the cable of a crane.
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