Amazon delivery drones crashed during test flight after safety sensor removed: report

Amazon’s cutting-edge delivery drones fell from the sky during a December test flight after a software update made them vulnerable to rain — an avoidable disaster made worse by the company’s decision to remove a critical safety sensor, according to a report citing federal documents.The twin crashes of Amazon’s MK30 drones in Oregon occurred just minutes apart on Dec.16, when both aircraft abruptly shut off mid-air at an altitude of more than 200 feet and slammed into the ground, Bloomberg News reported.The autonomous drones incorrectly believed they had landed, triggering an automatic shutdown of their propellers while flying, according to the report.An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board blamed the cause on faulty lidar readings made worse by the rain and a software tweak that increased the sensors’ sensitivity, Bloomberg reported.The NTSB told The Post that the drones “erroneously determined they had touched down due to an incorrect altitude reading from a new software installation, which resulted in a loss of engine power.”In a potentially crucial misstep, Amazon had removed backup “squat switches” — metal prongs used in earlier models to physically confirm a landing — leaving the aircraft reliant solely on sensor input, according to Bloomberg.The absence of this fail-safe likely contributed to the crashes, three people briefed on the matter told Bloomberg.Amazon strongly pushed back on those claims.“Bloomberg’s reporting is misleading,” spokesperson Kate Kudrna told The Post.“Statements that assume that replacing one system with another would have prevented an accident in the past is irresponsible.”Kudrna said Amazon has incorporated “multiple sensor inputs” to prevent false readings from causing future crashes.She added that the MK30 drone is both safer and more reliable than its predecessor and complies with Federal Aviation Administration standards.The crashes mark another hurdle for Amazon’s decade...