Google ‘s sister company Wing ‘s drone became entangled in wires in Brisbane. The city was left without power for several minutes.
A Wing drone , from the Alphabet company , became entangled with electrical cables in the city of Brisbane, Australia , leaving homes and businesses without power for several minutes.
The unmanned drone was carrying an order in the city when the incident happened. After colliding with the wiring, it burned due to the more than 11 thousand volts of electricity. As reported by The Age and ABC News , at least 2,000 establishments were left without power because of it.
Without precedents
The affected electricity company, Energex , pointed out that this event, the first in its reports, caused homes to be without power for between 45 minutes and up to 3 hours.
The drone reportedly incinerated completely, falling to the ground where utility workers found its remains. Interestingly, the food he was carrying was not harmed and was still hot, they noted.
A spokesperson for Wing told ABC that the drone “made a controlled landing as a precaution … and came to rest on power lines.”
just a wake up call
Since there were no major malfunctions in Energex ‘s electrical system , the company will not initiate any legal action against Wing.
However, a company spokesman asked the technology companies to be more careful with this matter. “Fifteen years ago, we asked people to be careful if they gave kites to their children at Christmas and where they flew them. We now ask parents to be very careful where their children fly their drones .”
The Alphabet -owned company received approval for its autonomous drones to deliver food and medicine in Australia in 2019.