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A comment on Swiss Post Suspends Drone Delivery Service After Second Crash. Parent comment

Re:Swiss Post Suspends Drone Delivery Service After Second C... by pfundstein on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @03:20AM (#20622943)
> what matters is that there is no way to do a controlled descent once anything goes wrong on a loaded drone because there is no margin for error.

Not entirely true. The drone had a parachute system to allow a controlled descent in situations like this and an alarm to alert nearby people to its descent. The problem here was that the parachute's single tether was severed shortly after deployment.

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Re:Swiss Post Suspends Drone Delivery Service After Second C... by shkkmo on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @10:28AM (#20625451)
> The drone had a parachute system to allow a controlled descent

The parachute would allow the drone to avoid a rapid descent. Most parachute systems are not steerable/flyable so they won't make it a controlled descent.

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Re:Swiss Post Suspends Drone Delivery Service After Second C... by ksaj on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @11:31PM (#20631782)
Parachutes won't control the descent. Might slow it down a little, but that is of arguable value if all 10 kg landed on top of those kids mentioned in the article.
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Re:Swiss Post Suspends Drone Delivery Service After Second C... by pfundstein on Wednesday August 07, 2019 @01:06AM (#20632114)
They don't control the descent, but they do control the descent. That is the descent (rate thereof) is controlled to a safe speed while the alarm alerts those below of its approach.
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