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Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

cnbc.com

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Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#2

Post by bri3d »

Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/089CBuGTkcY (it's also in the article; my ad blocker must have gotten me on this one). Amazon are not having a good run with these lately.

The double crane cable incident ( https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/02/us/arizona-amazon-drones-cras... ) and the LIDAR failsafe issue ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/amazon-re... ) were both rather surprising from a process and management standpoint. This issue seems more like a run of the mill "problem with drone delivery conceptually" that Amazon will have to deal with.

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#3

Post by purplecats »

bri3d wrote: post #2

Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/089CBuGTkcY (it's also in the article; my ad blocker must have gotten me on this one). Amazon are not having a good run with these lately. The double crane cable incident ( https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/02/us/arizona-amazon-drones-cras... ) and the LIDAR failsafe issue ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/amazon-re... ) were both rather surprising from a process and…

> not sure why it's not linked that I can find in the article from the same source?

the point is not news, its to keep you on their sites as long as possible with no escape

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#4

Post by bpodgursky »

Maybe we should consider this a chaos monkey test rather than castigating Amazon.

If Amazon can accidentally take down internet in a large area with a cheap commercial drone... what can a genuine bad actor do with a few thousand of these. If this is any indicator, half the country is going to be blind and deaf in the first day of a Taiwan war, it's going to be be over before we even get back online.

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#5

Post by observationist »

It's an ethernet cable, looks like? That's pretty cool that a drone has enough power to break an ethernet cable. It just got tangled in a single cable, looks like it was run across someone's back yard. That's not a bad failure mode, imo - gives them a little exercise in problem solving, figuring out how to prevent ethernet/cable collisions and snags, and maybe results in sensor upgrades, or they figure out good detangling maneuvers or something.

One cable getting damaged is inconvenient, but I'd have to laugh it off if it were my service. 5G would be a good enough backup in the meantime, and how often are you going to get to see these types of accidents (hopefully almost never) so it'd be cool to have a story.

"I ordered some flaming hot cheetos from a drone, and it broke my internet cable!"

Re: Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

#6

Post by jonny_eh »

bri3d wrote: post #2

Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/089CBuGTkcY (it's also in the article; my ad blocker must have gotten me on this one). Amazon are not having a good run with these lately. The double crane cable incident ( https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/02/us/arizona-amazon-drones-cras... ) and the LIDAR failsafe issue ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-16/amazon-re... ) were both rather surprising from a process and…

I half expected the shared clip to be this scene from Pluribus: https://youtu.be/r3D3dg23tyA?t=129
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