Impacted The Side Of A Building At High Speed

The concept of delivering mail by drone needs a little work, at least in Russia.

A demonstration planned for the Siberian town of Ulan-Ude took a turn for the worse recently when operators lost control of the aircraft shortly after takeoff and it impacted the wall of a building at high speed. It went from a $20,000 aircraft to scrap in the blink of an eye.

Engadget reports that, while no one knows for sure why the drone suddenly darted out of control, regional leader Alexei Tsydenov told Reuters that it is possible that the more than 100 WiFi signals in the area of the testing may have played a role But mail drones have flown in areas with a higher concentration of WiFi signals, so that is purely speculation at this point.

The Russian state mail carrier Russian Post has been working to distance itself from the incident, though its logo was prominently displayed the package that the drone was carrying was carrying.

Still Tsydenov said that he plans to "keep trying" to get the delivery right. But it's pretty clear that drone mail delivery in Russia is still a good ways down the road.

(Image from YouTube video posted by Guardian News)

FMI: Original report