A drone from an Alphabet subsidiary lands on a power line, catches fire and leaves 2,000 people without power

Home deliveries with drones and delivery robots are already a reality in some parts of the world. However, this alternative is not without problems. A few weeks ago, an autonomous food delivery vehicle sneaked into a crime scene in the United States. Now, a drone, also for delivery, has left more than 2,000 people without electricity.

According to ABCNews, the device owned by Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, landed last Thursday on one of the power lines in Brisbane, Australia. As a result of this maneuver, the drone caught fire on the cables and forced the network operating company to suspend the electricity service to intervene.

A “controlled landing” that did not end in the best way

These types of drones operate autonomously. Thanks to an artificial vision system, they identify their environment and plan the best route to reach their destination. Once in place, they activate a pulley system to lower the orders to the customers. It is not clear what happened, but evidently there was a problem during the trip that forced the drone to descend.

A Wing spokeswoman said the plane made a “precautionary controlled landing yesterday … and came to rest on an overhead power line.” After the incident, they informed Energex. To remove the drone from the site, the energy operator decided to temporarily suspend a part of the service. The consequence? 2,000 people were left without electricity for about 45 minutes and 300 people for three hours.

Over the years we discovered new ways to use these small (and sometimes not so small) UAVs and developed capable and safe versions. From using them to draw figures in the sky, to sowing clouds, to collaborating with the emergency services to access places that are difficult to access. What will be the next step? In time we will know.

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