The Swiss mail resumes delivery by drones after two accidents

2020: Delivery resuming by drones after two accidents

In January, 2020 the Swiss postal service (Swiss Post)  decided to renew delivery service drones after the project was frozen because of accidents with participation of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Cargo delivery and medical analyses by means of the UAV is resumed on January 27, 2020. As reported Swiss Post  and Matternet (the developer of the drones used in the project), use of devices for transportation of goods  does not constitute danger to people on  the earth.

The Swiss mail resumes delivery by drones after two accidents

We confirm that Swiss Post and Matternet follow high standards of security, they know well about them. There are no reasons for which flights should not be resumed — professor Michel Guillaume, the head of the Center of aircraft at the University of applied science in Zurich reported (Sheytsariya).

Matternet assured that the company implemented recommendations about security and employed the head who will be responsible for it.

Until the end of March, 2020 in Switzerland there will be an additional supervisory body which will monitor respect for flight safety of Matternet UAVs.

Besides, the Aviation authorities of Switzerland gave to Swiss Post authority to control all flights of Matternet drones  in the territory of Switzerland.

Matternet will have to implement the new recommendations about flight safety set by Federal agency of civil aviation (FOCA) and the Swiss council for investigation of safety of transportations (STSB) after the previous accidents.

After accidents of the company carried out more than 2 thousand test flights in Switzerland using modifed UAVs which should be less subject to failures. Swiss Post claims that UAVs allow to deliver laboratory analyses between medical institutions and laboratories 45 minutes faster, than at traditional transportation.^[1]

2019: Falling of UAVs

At the end of July, 2019 the Swiss postal service (Swiss Post) decided to refuse mail delivery by drones after one of unmanned aerial vehicles fell two steps away from children. Potential failure effects of the UAV which transfer sendings by air were too serious.

The Matternet company within partnership with the Swiss postal service which in important cases used devices for sending laboratory samples from one medical center was engaged in operation of drones. It was supposed that in the future UAVs will be able to transfer also a regular mail, but this hope failed together with faulty drones. The first incident occurred in January, 2019 and was result of the hardware error GPS; the drone unrolled an abnormal parachute and slowly fell by the earth. Then the company took measures for improvement of GPS systems.

The Swiss mail stopped delivery using drones after the incident with falling of the UAV

However the second failure of systems which took place in May, 2019 led to the fact that the drone could not unroll a parachute because of the torn cord and sharply fell, having crashed into the earth about five meters from group of kindergartners. Nobody suffered, but an incident was documented, though was not widely publicized.

Nevertheless, falling from height of several hundred meters of the 12-kilogram UAV with sending could put a serious injury or even to kill the child - for this reason there are very strict rules of flight over localities and concourses of people. The Matternet company noted that the area where the UAV fell, is not populated - it is the forest Region of Zurich more suitable for flight.

However the postal service decided to be reinsured and refused partnership until Matternet manages to permit faults in the abnormal system of drones, in particular, in a parachute system. The Matternet company assures that it will be able to fix a problem and to resume operation of unmanned aerial vehicles.^[2]

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