Swiss drone delivery program suspended as drone crashes near children

A Swiss drone delivery program has been suspended indefinitely after one of its vehicles crashed just 50 yards away from a group of children.

The drone that weighs 10 kg and is capable of delivering up to 2 kg of cargo, encountered an issue in May, during one of its flights. Even though the drone was equipped with an emergency parachute, it managed to cut the connecting chord which resulted in an uncontrolled crash.

There were, however, no casualties.

This is the second crash suffered by the Swiss drone delivery program this year. There was previously also a crash in January. However, in that case the drone’s parachute successfully deployed, and the landing was controlled. However, the delivery program, operated by US drone startup Matternet in collaboration with the Swiss Post, was suspended until April.

It is currently unclear what caused the May crash, though the Swiss Post’s preliminary investigation suggests that wind may have been to blame.

In response to the crash, Swiss Post has asked Matternet to make several changes to the safety features of its drones. It wants each drone to be connected to its parachute by two ropes rather than one, it wants the ropes to be reinforced with metal braiding, and it wants the drone’s existing emergency landing whistle to be louder.

Matternet provided a statement to ‘Spectrum IEEE’ in which it said that it had never seen a failure like the one that its drone experienced in May and that the drone’s parachute system had never failed before. “A failure of the parachute system is a clear failure of our safety mechanisms and we are taking all the appropriate measures to address it,” the company said, adding that it intends to restart operations once Matternet, Swiss Post, the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation, and the company’s hospital customers in Switzerland are satisfied that the “appropriate mitigations” have been applied.