Two Aircraft Have Crashed, Leading To The Action

A drone delivery program conducted jointly by Swiss Post and Matternet has been suspended following incidents involving two of the aircraft involved in the program.

Matternet was operating the autonomous aircraft for the Swiss mail delivery service to transport lab samples between medical facilities for priority cases. TechCrunch reports that in one of the incidents, which occurred in January, the drone made a soft landing after its emergency parachute deployed as programmed following a GPS hardware error.

In a second failure, which occurred in May, the parachutes lines were severed during deployment, and the aircraft impacted the ground hard only about 150 feet from a group of children. While no one was injured, it was a worst-case scenario for the service.

The drone that went down hard weighed about 26 pounds. Matternet said that the aircraft did not come down in a populated area, but over a forested area of Zurich, which is safer for autonomous aircraft.

For now, the fleet has been grounded, and the program will not be restarted until the issues can be resolved.

Following the GPS failure in January, Matternet took corrective action to improve that system. The company issued a statement following the second accident saying it was the first time that the parachute system had failed, and corrective action is being evaluated by Swiss authorities. "We will restart operations once Matternet and Swiss Post, FOCA and our hospital customers in Switzerland are satisfied that the appropriate mitigations have been applied," the company statement said.

Earlier this year, Matternet partnered with UPS to establish drone delivery service in the U.S. It is not known how, or if these incidents will affect that service.

(Image from a Swiss Transportation Investigation Board report)

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