Crashes and Layoffs Plague Amazon's Drone Delivery Pilot

Early that morning, about 40 peopleincluding FAA officials, Amazon engineers, public relations staff, and Prime Air chief pilot Jim Mullinwaited outside a steel frame warehouse on a flat, 20-acre parcel of land flanked by vineyards..

The rep surveyed the propertya 5-acre parcel with a swimming pool, trampoline, and chicken coopto confirm the yard had the necessary air clearance (no overhanging tree limbs or power lines) and 10-foot clearance radius in which to install a metal stake, a plastic sheet emblazoned with an Amazon logo, and a landing pad with a QR-code-like fiducial marker that the drone would fly toward before lowering to make a drop..

Once approved, he was sent an email with a link to a private Amazon landing page displaying items available for drone delivery: Toothpaste, lots of condoms, things like that, he says.. The mans actual first deliveriesan Amazon Fire TV stick and pack of gum received earlier that fallwere unofficial, as Prime Air hadnt gained FAA approval to fly drones commercially..

The reason so many Amazon employees need to watch the drones as they deliver is that, more than a decade into the program, Prime Air still hasnt received type certification from the FAA to fly over active roadways and peoplethe kind that Cessnas light aircraft or Matternets M2 drones have..

A former flight operator who works closely with Prime Airs drones says safety issues caused by faulty motors and other hardware issues have been largely resolved in the MK27-2, but unforeseen software bugs still crop up..

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