[HN Gopher] Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps in...
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Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone snaps internet cable in
Texas
Author : jonathanzufi
Score : 64 points
Date : 2025-11-26 11:05 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| bri3d wrote:
| 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.
| purplecats wrote:
| > 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
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I half expected the shared clip to be this scene from Pluribus:
| https://youtu.be/r3D3dg23tyA?t=129
| nullify88 wrote:
| That scene really cracked me up. The show is shot very well.
| It's good to have Vince Gilligan back on the TV again.
| itishappy wrote:
| The article contains the exact same clip without edited audio.
| bri3d wrote:
| I think my ad blocker must have filtered the element. Post
| updated, thanks.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| 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.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| the ukrainians destroyed hundred million dollar russian bombers
| with a drone attack in July. drone warfare is very much on-the-
| radar
| observationist wrote:
| 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!"
| malfist wrote:
| One internet cable isn't a big deal until it is. Or until it
| isn't an internet cable. That's what we investigate both near
| misses and minor issues
| d-lisp wrote:
| It would be great that the drone had some kind of tactile
| sensibility.
|
| Go slowly in the opposite direction of said contact first, then
| if that is not working try to rotate on one of the horizontal
| axis while going in the opposite direction to see if it make a
| difference, and if it doesn't then something is stuck on your
| skin, and you should be able to notice that your weight is not
| the same as before; if that's not the case, then maybe your
| sensor is just broken, but then maybe you could be able to
| notice some difference in the power consumption of the tactile
| components array, and if that's not the case ... well, maybe
| that sensor is off too ? Wait ... what are you doing in Madrid
| ?
| bri3d wrote:
| I think it's a typical retrofit outdoor coaxial cable run. The
| ridiculously haphazard installation method matches my usual
| experience with cable provider installations, too.
| binarymax wrote:
| Am I the only one who doesn't want drones flying all around the
| neighborhood delivering stuff? I _really_ don't want this.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| no, you're probably not the only one. bring it up at the next
| concerned citizens action committee meeting
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| Solid meh from me. Only thing I really don't like about it is
| it's likely to impact the personal rights to fly drones we
| enjoy today (which are already being chipped away).
|
| Otherwise, they're probably not very loud or frequent, don't
| really present much of a privacy issue vs. what street view
| already has, and they maybe make the roads a bit safer. Might
| take some jobs away from delivery van drivers. Nothing seems
| worth getting overly concerned for.
| asdff wrote:
| Probably half my immediate neighbors get an amazon delivery a
| day. The truck makes sometimes two or three stops throughout
| the day and is there for like 15-20 minutes running packages.
| The thought of that replaced with drone traffic is crazy. It
| would be like dozens of landings and overflights per hour. It
| is already bad enough when the realtors fly their drones
| overhead. I can't imagine the birds and bees aren't getting
| stressed out if it's managing to piss me off.
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| Sounds like there's an opportunity for bigger drones where
| you are. Lower frequency noise, fewer flights if you can
| drop more than one package per flight.
|
| I just have a hard time seeing this becoming a major
| quality of life issue in the real world. It's gonna be
| fine.
|
| And birds and bees seem to be fine around waterfalls and
| airports, I think they'll survive drone noise.
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| What on earth are people buying that's delivered so
| frequently? I find the whole concept of frequent deliveries
| confusing.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Same. Even outside the holiday season, there are 5+ package
| truck deliveries/day on my little street (12 houses).
| That's UPS, FedEx, USPS, usually multiple Amazon (which
| always surprises me), plus a couple unmarked vans. Plus
| couriers in cars. Plus food delivery, at least 2 a night.
| Almost all the Amazon vans are now electric Rivians or
| GMCs.
|
| That's a LOT of drone traffic, given there's near zero
| ability to double up on a single stop as there is today.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I see the downsides. But I also see the delivery vans in my
| neighborhood that are always double parking and blocking
| traffic. At least in the air, traffic can be routed in 3d.
| lagniappe wrote:
| Just as the delivery vans participate with local police
| through FLOC, so will the drones, soon. Remember, if it can
| be seen from a public vantage point, it's not private,
| including what can be seen through windows and behind fences.
| ggreer wrote:
| Consider that drones substitute for cars and trucks driving
| through neighborhoods.
|
| For the same payload delivered, ground vehicles cause
| significantly more property damage, environmental damage, and
| injuries/deaths.
| malfist wrote:
| The semi truck isn't driving through my backyard recording
| video of me. And I doubt the economics of scale make the
| truck more environmentally damaging than a drone delivering a
| single item
| jacquesm wrote:
| That truck carries 500 packages. That drone one or two at
| best so to replace one truck you're looking at 100's of
| flights + return flights. And I'm not convinced the risks are
| lower.
| jsheard wrote:
| Trucks also don't sound like a swarm of angry bees, in fact
| the all-electric truck fleet that Amazon uses around here
| barely sounds like anything at all. Drones would be a huge
| step backwards for noise pollution.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >Trucks also don't sound like a swarm of angry bees,
|
| Heh, you've not heard my neighbors riced out car then.
| Gigachad wrote:
| In my area packages are often delivered on what looks
| something like an electric golf cart. It's efficient, safe,
| and minimally disruptive.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| Annoying drone buzzing when it works, 80lb bricks from heaven
| when it doesn't. Not really looking forward to that future.
| callamdelaney wrote:
| User error. Who calls a drone in where there are overhead cables?
| kazinator wrote:
| FAA is now investigating toys that hit trivial cables?
|
| What a joke!
|
| If Mikey's RC car hits someone's foot in the park, will the DOT
| investigate?
| malfist wrote:
| Does Mikey's rc car weigh over a hundred pounds and travel at
| 100mph?
| teachrdan wrote:
| Does Mikey aspire to have millions of RC cars driving 24 hours
| a day all over the country?
| mig39 wrote:
| Looking at the video, the cable looks ... fragile. Would a large
| bird landing on it do the same amount of damage?
|
| Shouldn't it be thick, armoured cable, attached to a strong wire
| or something?
| pavon wrote:
| It is a standard outdoor coaxial cable. Perhaps it looks thin
| because you are mentally scaling to the size of smaller hobby
| drones.
|
| Edit: The MK30 is 78 pounds, and about 6 feet diameter. Here is
| an image with a human for scale:
|
| https://dronexl.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Amazon-Prime-A...
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I'm generally pretty gung ho about tech adoption. Nuclear? Yes!
| LLMs everywhere? Let's try it! Crypto? OK... give it a go! Self
| driving cars? Heck yeah!
|
| But I really, really don't want drones flying over my house,
| polluting the already noisy soundscape, etc. This just strikes me
| as a terrible idea.
| teachrdan wrote:
| My dream is that an increase in drones would lead to a decrease
| in vehicular deliveries, to the point that there would be a net
| _decrease_ in noise.
|
| But in my heart of hearts I am certain the convenience of drone
| delivery -- and an absence of sufficient regulation -- would
| lead to a drastic net _increase_ in noise instead.
| hamdingers wrote:
| This dream is naive. One truck rumbling (or humming, in the
| near future) through your neighborhood delivering packages to
| each of your neighbors over the course of 30 minutes will be
| replaced with one drone per neighbor.
|
| If they must exist, I hope they're priced/taxed such that
| they're used sparingly.
| fragmede wrote:
| Bit of a travelling salesman problem, but I think a hybrid
| approach would be optimal. Have the delivery van drive to a
| neighborhood, then release drones from the van to deliver
| packages to individual houses.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Why would Amazon be in trouble for not knowing the customer has
| an Ethernet cable stretched across their yard? Even AT&T
| (Southwestern Bell) buried drops from the pedestal to the house.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| because it should be able to detect and avoid any number of
| obstacles.
|
| what if the next time it hits a clothes line and lands on
| someone?
|
| the FAA investigates anything that might cause shit to fall out
| of the sky
| riotnrrd wrote:
| I used to work in perception for autonomous aerial vehicles and
| horizontal wires were the hardest common object to avoid.
| Traditional stereo won't help you localize them -- wires are thin
| so even mere detection can be hard, and one portion of a wire
| looks much like another so feature matching fails resulting in
| bad or no depth estimates -- and LIDAR sacrifices resolution for
| weight and power consumption (which both have to be optimizied
| for drones). It's been years since I've worked in this field, and
| Amazon has many smart people thinking about it but I'm not
| surprised it's still a difficult problem.
| vpShane wrote:
| Ah yeah I came up with the solution to that one. It's 'don't
| fly drones over our heads' approach. Also the 'upgrade the
| fragile infrastructure so a light breeze doesn't take out
| millions of people's power.'
| venturecruelty wrote:
| Sorry, not profitable enough, not a "team player". Please
| enjoy these weekly 1:1s with your manager and HR.
| LogicFailsMe wrote:
| I'm sure this will sound a bit whack to some of the sorts on here
| but honestly, who cares?
|
| I was at the principal engineers offsite summit in scenic Cle
| Ellum when they supposedly announced prime Air.
|
| I know, I know, what the f** ever, but there was something very
| ominous and significant at this unveiling. If this were my demo
| and my unveiling, I would have had a drone pick up a package at
| one side of the auditorium and drop it off at the other side of
| the auditorium.
|
| What we got was a mock package and a mock drone and lots of talky
| talk from a guy who didn't last long at Amazon. This set the tone
| for everything going forward. and the engineers of tech, the real
| engineers of tech, not the toxic empathy talkers who can't do
| anything (tm), need to put these people in their place or the
| enshittification will continue unopposed.
|
| I'm mostly out of f**s here having made what I needed to make but
| it's fun to post here in a position of not caring what people
| think of me anymore. Make of that what you will
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