Amazon is still struggling to make drone deliveries work

Image: Amazon

According to a report from Bloomberg, Amazon's efforts to get its delivery drones off the ground are hampered by a high employee turnover rate and potential safety risks.

There were five crashes over the course of four months at the company's testing site in Oregon. Amazon cleaned up the wreck before the FAA could look into the crash. Av Zammit said that Amazon followed orders from theNTSB to document the event and move the drone.

In the month after, the motor on the drone shut off when it switched from an upward flight path to flying straight ahead. Two safety features, one that is supposed to land the drone in this type of situation and the other that is supposed to stabilizing the drone, both failed. The brush fire that stretched across 25 acres was caused by the flipped upside down drone that dropped from 160 feet in the air. The local fire department put it out.

The FAA said in a report that the drone dropped about 160 feet in an uncontrollable fall and was consumed by fire.

We still don't have drones delivering Amazon packages to our doorstep almost 10 years after Jeff Bezos first announced 30-minute drone deliveries. The company promised to redesign its Prime Air delivery drones with the ability to fly vertically and launch drones later in the year, but it didn't happen. The vice president of Prime Air said that the FAA approval for the company to operate as a drone airline in 2020 was an important step forward.

Last year, a report stated that Amazon's drone delivery operation is struggling just as much in the UK as it is in the US. The UK outfit is marred by some of the same issues that were described by Bloomberg, including a high turnover rate and potential safety issues, according to a report. One worker drank beer on the job at a UK facility for analyzing drone footage for people and animals, while another held down the "approve" button on their computer regardless of whether there were dangers in the footage.

In a statement to The Verge, Zammit said that the flight tests did not result in any injuries or put structures at risk.

We use a private facility to test our systems up to their limits. We apply the learnings from each flight towards improving safety, because we expect these types of events to occur with rigorous testing. No one has ever been injured or harmed as a result of these flights, and each test is done in compliance with all applicable regulations.

According to former and current employees at Amazon, the company is more focused on safety than on innovation. Skeete said he was fired from Amazon for speaking with his manager about his safety concerns. Skeete doubted the team's claim that they had inspected 180 engines on 30 different drones, as checking the motors is a cumbersome process.

We encourage our team members to raise any safety suggestions and concerns, because our safety reporting system is well-known by all of them.

Amazon would sometimes perform tests without a full flight team and with inadequate equipment, according to David Johnson, a former flight assistant.

They give people multiple things to do in a very narrow window of time to try to boost their numbers, and people cut corners.

Crew members are only assigned one role per flight, according to Zammit. Crew members are briefed on their individual roles before each flight test. We don't set time limits for completion of any aspect of our flight tests, and our team can take their time to complete their roles safely.

A previous version of the article stated that a drone caught fire when it landed. We regret the mistake.

There was an additional statement from Av Zammit and additional context surrounding Amazon's response to a drone crash.