By Matt Day | Bloomberg
Amazon.com is pausing all commercial drone deliveries after two of its latest models crashed in rainy weather at a testing facility.
The company said Friday it was immediately suspending drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona to fix the aircraft’s software. It’s the latest setback for a program inching toward widespread commercial service more than 11 years after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced an initiative to build drones capable of delivering products to customers in less than half an hour.
In a previously unreported December incident, two MK30 drones crashed during flights at the Pendleton, Oregon, airport Amazon uses for testing, with one catching fire on the ground. The company later discovered a software issue was to blame, related to the light rain the aircraft were flying through at the time.
The MK30 drones, cleared to commence operations by the Federal Aviation Administration in October, have been delivering packages to customers’ homes in College Station, Texas, and Tolleson, Arizona, a suburb near Phoenix. The six-propeller machine is designed to be lighter and quieter than its predecessor, the MK27-2, and fly in light rain.
“We’re currently in the process of making software changes to the drone and will be voluntarily pausing our commercial operations,” Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson said in a statement after Bloomberg inquired about the recent crashes. Deliveries will resume once the updates are completed and approved by the FAA, Stephenson said. Employees at the drone sites, who were told of the action Friday, will continue to be paid during the pause.
“Safety underscores everything we do in Prime Air and our MK30 drone is safe and compliant,” Stephenson added. “It’s designed to safely respond to unknown events in a known way, and the overall architecture of the drone has performed as expected.”
Amazon’s drone operation, called Prime Air, aims to deliver some 500 million packages a year by the end…
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