[kellyhound]

The MK30, Prime Air’s newest drone, crashed into the side of an apartment building in Richardson, Texas, a Dallas suburb, on Feb. 4.

Cesarina Johnson, who captured the collision from her window, told that the collision seemed to happen "almost immediately" after she began to record the drone in action.

"I was initially just recording just to get the Amazon drone on camera because it was the first time I’ve seen one in person," Johnson said. " I didn’t realize that was about to happen."

"Man down," Johnson says, just seconds after the drone flies out of sight. "Uh oh. That does not sound good. Oh my god."

While the crash itself occurred just out of Johnson's eyeline, debris and eventually the drone itself fell from the sky and onto the ground just outside her window.

"The propellers on the thing were still moving, and you could smell it was starting to burn," Johnson told. "And you see a few sparks in one of my videos. Luckily, nothing really caught on fire where it got, it escalated really crazy."

According to the outlet, firefighters were called out of an abundance of caution, but the "drone never caught fire." No injuries were reported in connection with the crash.

[akham]

They're quite large.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/ope...ivery-packages

[rohmell]

"We designed it with aerospace levels of reliability and redundancy.” explained Stephen Wells, chief project engineer for the Prime Air team.

The development phase started with safety and reliability criteria that culminated in a best-in-class perception system to detect and avoid obstacles, significant noise reduction, and redundant flight-critical systems that ensure no single point of failure can cause loss of control of the drone.

[Gore Whore]

Wtf there are delivery drones now??

No thanks

[rohmell]

Originally Posted by Gore Whore ↗

Wtf there are delivery drones now??

Amazon began official regular commercial drone deliveries to customers in 2022 in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, following FAA approval in 2020.

[DarkSighted]

Yeah, well, they're accidents for NOW.

Let's talk about large, over-loud drones....
https://people.com/the-how-to-train-...s-why-11851218

[Mr.NoCredit]

What’s the longevity of these drones and what’s the cost to build one? How many are in service and how many have crashed? Is it worth the cost? It’s not a dollar and hour factory worker but is it truly cost effective!?!

[kellyhound]

Originally Posted by Mr.NoCredit ↗

What’s the longevity of these drones and what’s the cost to build one? How many are in service and how many have crashed? Is it worth the cost? It’s not a dollar and hour factory worker but is it truly cost effective!?!

MK30 around 2 to 3 years with regular updates and maintenance/replacements.

they cost $60,000 to build and are around 86K cheaper as the older MK27.

Internal projections peg drone delivery at about $63 per package as of 2025, far higher than ground delivery (roughly $3-4 per package on average).

Amazon has invested over $2 billion in the program, facing setbacks like crashes, regulatory delays, and pauses (e.g., nationwide halts in January and October 2025).

Unit economics aren't sustainable yet at limited scale, with high per-drone costs and constraints like payload limits (under 5 pounds) and short ranges (6-10 miles).

Don't worry as the delivery prices and goods prices will go up to compensate the loss, like usual.

[Mr.NoCredit]

Originally Posted by kellyhound ↗

MK30 around 2 to 3 years with regular updates and maintenance/replacements.

they cost $60,000 to build and are around 86K cheaper as the older MK27.

Don't worry as the delivery prices and goods prices will go up to compensate the loss, like usual.

If you’re a Prime member there is no cost for delivery.

Is that cost per unit!?!

[akham]

Originally Posted by rohmell ↗

"We designed it with aerospace levels of reliability and redundancy.” explained Stephen Wells, chief project engineer for the Prime Air team.

And what they ended up with was a Prime Example of how not to safely build and operate a drone.

As can be seen in the photos in the page I linked, each drone is considered an aircraft and has its own N-number.

Several crashes of the MK30 have been reported on the Aviation Safety Network:

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/type/amaz