Amazon to Resume Drone Deliveries Near Phoenix After Crashes
NTSB, FAA Are Investigating Incidents
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Amazon.com Inc. said it will resume drone deliveries near Phoenix on Oct. 3, after pausing operations there earlier this week following two collisions that prompted investigations by federal regulators.
A pair of Amazon MK30 drones hit a stationary crane at about 10 a.m. local time Oct. 1, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
No injuries were reported, the agency said.
A preliminary FAA notice on the accident, which took place in Tolleson, Ariz., near one of Amazon’s drone delivery sites, said one of the aircraft caught fire on the ground.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board said they’re investigating the crashes.
Drone delivery in Tolleson will resume Oct. 3 and Amazon will continue to work with federal agencies, company spokesperson Terrence Clark said in an emailed statement. “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,” he said. “Nonetheless, we’ve introduced additional processes like enhanced visual landscape inspections to better monitor for moving obstructions such as cranes.”
Amazon’s drone delivery program, which aims to deliver some 500 million packages a year by the end of this decade, is still in the first phases of a commercial rollout designed to ferry packages from warehouses to shoppers’ homes. Amazon Prime Air has experienced multiple technical challenges and crashes at testing sites, including an incident in December when two of the autonomous aircraft cut their propellers after being confused by a light rain.
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The MK30 drone is designed to automatically detect and avoid obstacles in flight.
Amazon ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America, No. 15 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest private carriers and No. 1 on the TT Top 50 list of the largest global freight companies.
