U.S. FAA probes Amazon after delivery drone snaps internet cable in Texas

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Tuesday that it is investigating Amazon after one of its delivery drones knocked down an internet cable in central Texas last week.

 "A MK30 drone struck a wire line in Waco, Texas, around 12:45 p.m. local time on Tuesday, November 18," the regulator said in a statement to Reuters, adding that it "is investigating" this incident. 

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it is not investigating the event. On November 18, after completing a delivery, a drone clipped a thin overhead internet cable and then carried out a "Safe Contingent Landing," as designed, an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters in an email, emphasizing that "there were no injuries or widespread internet service outages." 

Video footage reviewed by CNBC, which first reported the incident, shows one of Amazon's MK30 drones taking off from a customer's yard when one of its six propellers became tangled in a utility line.

The drone's motors shut down afterward, leading to a controlled descent. This follows earlier statements from the NTSB and FAA in October, when they announced investigations into a separate incident involving two Amazon Prime Air drones colliding with a crane in Arizona. 

Amazon began delivering prescription medications by drone through its Amazon Pharmacy partnership to customers in College Station, Texas, in 2023. The company plans to deliver 500 million packages annually by drone by 2030.