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

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

#241

Post by Aeolun »

scottbez1 wrote: post #225
numpad0 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying machines are never to be flown near cables. It's not like human pilots on a helicopter can detect and avoid the cables in the first place. 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…

Here's an excellent video from Juan Browne around the challenges that wires present to aircraft operations [1]. Some of these are human factors for manned aircraft, like seeing a wire but then forgetting it's there, but one of his points is that it's simply safest to avoid flying below 1000ft AGL. That's not an option for drones today, and they presumably don't (yet) have the ability of humans to make inferences abou…

Drones can reach 1000 ft right? That’s only like 300m. Maybe Amazon doesn’t want to because it costs more battery?

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

#242

Post by djtriptych »

JCM9 wrote: post #144
djtriptych wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Amazon’s approach to its “see and avoid” responsibility is fundamentally flawed in some way vs this being a one-off fluke with a broken sensor or other anomaly.

ok but also two drones crashing isn't "more" of a problem than one drone crashing really.

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.

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

#243

Post by Atheros »

oofbey wrote: post #157
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 real…

The discover and fix phase is over. In August 2025, the FAA announced Part 108 which codifies the rules. Up until now, companies have been operating under waivers. The comment period for Part 108 ends on October 6th. After that the rules may be changed slightly and then will be finalized.

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?

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

#244

Post by alex43578 »

Aeolun wrote: post #241
scottbez1 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an excellent video from Juan Browne around the challenges that wires present to aircraft operations [1]. Some of these are human factors for manned aircraft, like seeing a wire but then forgetting it's there, but one of his points is that it's simply safest to avoid flying below 1000ft AGL. That's not an option for drones today, and they presumably don't (yet) have the ability of humans to make inferences abou…

Drones can reach 1000 ft right? That’s only like 300m. Maybe Amazon doesn’t want to because it costs more battery?

Drones can reach much more than 1000ft, but in the US are not allowed to - 400ft flight ceiling.

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.

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

#245

Post by cozzyd »

dhosek wrote: post #184
perihelions wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "stay 100m away from tall structures" 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…

Have you ever been inside a tall building? How are you thinking a drone would deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings? The windows don’t open. There are occasional balconies or terraces, but these are more the exception than the rule, especially for “hungry office workers in a Shenzhen skyscraper.”

Residential buildings usually have operable windows (and often balconies). My condo building is only 17 stories tall, but my windows open all the way. On the other hand, it's an old building and there might be new rules for new buildings, since for those I usually only see the windows open a little.

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).

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

#246

Post by FpUser »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #216
FpUser wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they show on video does not protect props. Dumbest invention ever. Never mind that the idea of cutting cable is even worse.

The guy who invented it tested it at various speeds and angles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_strike_protection_system . There are also numerous documented cases of these working as intended in the NTSB database. The FAA did a study and found that wire strike cutters significantly reduced fatalities https://skybrary.aero/sites/default/files/bookshelf/3288.pdf So no, not a dumb idea according to the FAA's data ba…

Ok. I am the one who is dumb in here ;) Shit happens

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

#247

Post by appreciatorBus »

stefan_ wrote: post #218
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…

Why do people always get a hard on for bizarre drone rules? Some amateur pilot goes up in a fireball every other week, I think we put up their safety record to that of drones and there are going to be some hard choices to make - I think it's over for our amateur pilots out there.

TBH my concern is less for the fate of people who choose to fly planes or drones - they are the ones making the choice so if they hurt themselves that sucks, but none of my business. However I am concerned for the innocent bystanders who might be under them, who did not choose to risk death or injury by an aircraft, drone or otherwise.

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.

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

#248

Post by cmurf »

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 video perspective might be misleading - but if the area surrounding the crane is as totally devoid from other obstacles as it appears? I wonder if the operator maybe didn't see the crane. How is that possible? No idea.

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...

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

#250

Post by autumnstwilight »

MountDoom wrote: post #191
diggan wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then how do you deliver to the upper floors of vertical buildings? 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.

Many parts of Europe solved it in a more low-tech way: street-side parcel lockers unlocked with your phone. Massively reduces delivery cost (i.e., one driver can deliver far more packages per hour), is pretty convenient and safe (no packages left unattended), and best of all, doesn't require a fleet of UAVs. You can pretty naturally extend this once you have self-driving vans. I think Amazon has a proprietary version…

Japan too, convenience stores are everywhere, packages go to lockers in the convenience store, unlock with phone app.

(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.)

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