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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

#151

Post by jabroni_salad »

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…

I had a look at the video... if that's the crane that was in the incident then the drone was simply way too low for cruising. This isn't a tower crane with a flight restriction. They were moving equipment on the roof of a single story building.

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

#152

Post by oofbey »

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…

Thanks for the context! Makes sense for traditional aircraft to be super conservative like this, especially given they tend to travel very long routes and sometimes have nothing more than a pair of human eyes paying attention to obstacles.

Do you know what are the rules for helicopters in a city? That seems like a closer analogue.

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

#153

Post by perihelions »

cherioo wrote: post #143
johntb86 wrote: post #65

https://www.theverge.com/news/790636/amazon-prime-mk30-drone... gives more information, including that * 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

The video also includes a video clip of package delivery, where drone would drop package to the ground, which worked. But then propeller blew the package right into the bush was lmao.

Timestamp for the ADHD's,

https://youtu.be/E_ZpY6qHcTk?t=134

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

#154

Post by oofbey »

bri3d wrote: post #114
neom wrote: post #3

Little after 10am, pure speculation but wonder if the angle of the sun overwhelmed the dynamic range of the image sensor over a particularly inopportune area of the frame. Guessing no LiDAR on drones like this.

mmWave is the usual solution for this; I know that Amazon were at least testing using mmWave but I'm not sure if it made it to their production drones.

Would that act like radar in mmWave? Send out pulses and see where they come back and time difference to estimate range?

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

#155

Post by codedokode »

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…

Cables are not hard to see with eyes.

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

#156

Post by bell-cot »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #141
appreciatorBus wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

5 miles sounds pretty ridiculous, TBH. These things aren't moving at Mach 3.

At a mere (say) 240mph, 5 miles is 75 seconds. Talk to an experienced pilot about how short a time that is, when a bottom-10% pilot is trying to figure out some problem with his instrumentation, or has set his radio to the wrong frequency, or whatever.

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

#157

Post by oofbey »

hermannj314 wrote: post #98

Household ownership of cars hit 50% by 1930 but there was no federal seatbelt mandate unitl 1968 or regulation of intoxicated driving until the 1980s. 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 th…

The facts don’t line up with your concerns. Amazon announced prime air in what 2013 IIRC. Now 12 years later they have FAA approval for a small number of test flights. Exactly so they can slowly discover problems like this and fix them. Every safety critical system in the world is iteratively refined based on real world learnings about mistakes - mistakes made after careful design to avoid them. It’s just really really hard.

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

#158

Post by tifik »

codedokode wrote: post #155
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…

Cables are not hard to see with eyes.

If this were true, aviation cable markers would not be a thing. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash

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

#160

Post by rkomorn »

hulitu wrote: post #159

> Two Amazon delivery drones crash into crane in commercial area of Tolleson, AZ What stupid crane flies into the path of delivery drones ? /s

Commercial cranes, no less. They think they can compete with storks? Come on.
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