On the same week that Amazon announced plans to expand its Prime Air Delivery service to 500 more cities and towns across the U.S., a video filmed by a Texas woman has surfaced, documenting the moment one of the company's delivery drones unceremoniously dumped a package straight into her swimming pool. The viral video was filmed after Lindsey Austen heard her drone buzzing loudly and ran outside to record it.
As you can see from the footage below, shared by ABC 7 News, the Texas Amazon customer was excited to receive her first drone-delivered order. "After hearing the loud buzzing of the drone arriving, she ran outside to record the delivery," the caption states. The painfully amusing footage shows the drone, humming loudly as it hovers over the woman's pool. The woman repeats "Oh my God" in anticipation, before yelling "Oh ****," as the autonomous robot opens its door and drops the package into the pool.
As mentioned, on Wednesday, Amazon announced it would expand Prime Air to nearly 500 cities and towns in the United States by the end of 2026, a 6x increase that will reportedly benefit tens of millions of customers. According to Amazon, its drone delivery selection includes millions of groceries, electronics, cosmetics, medications, and household products, which can be delivered in as little as 30 minutes.
Amazon already serves seven states with Prime Air, including the aforementioned Texas, where the unfortunate pool party took place. According to Amazon, Prime Air "is built to operate responsibly, and the safety of the employees, customers, and communities Amazon serves is the top priority." Its delivery service holds Federal Aviation Administration Part 135 certification, and "multiple independent systems" keep the drones "operating safely and predictably" while in flight, even in unexpected situations, Amazon claims. "Prime Air’s industry-leading Detect-and-Avoid system continuously monitors the airspace and environment around the drone. It’s similar to a trained pilot who scans the surrounding airspace, and it allows the drones to independently see and make real-time decisions while in flight," the company continues.
Adding to the irony, Amazon says that Prime Air drones use onboard cameras and sensors to navigate, check for obstacles, and deliver packages safely. Certainly, nothing unsafe happened in the video; the package fell harmlessly into the water, with no bystanders around to be struck. Likewise, in the video, the drone doesn't collide with any obstacles, but clearly, some malfunction in the final moments of delivery convinced the drone that simply dropping the package in the swimming pool was a good idea.
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