Two Amazon MK30 drones crash minutes apart at Pendleton test range

What happened

On December 16, 2024, Amazon’s Prime Air team was flying MK30 delivery drones at its test range at the airport in Pendleton, Oregon. According to National Transportation Safety Board findings reported by Bloomberg and summarized by DroneXL, one drone had just dropped a package at a mock house and was at 217 feet when it lost power and fell. About four minutes later a second MK30, flying 183 feet above a taxiway, did the same.

One of the drones caught fire after hitting the ground. No one was hurt. The crashes became public in January 2025 through Bloomberg’s reporting.

The system involved

The MK30 is Amazon’s current delivery drone, an electric aircraft with six propellers that takes off vertically, flies its route autonomously and carries packages of up to about 5 pounds. It uses lidar sensors to judge its height above the ground.

According to the reported federal findings, the lidar sensors gave wrong altitude readings and the flight software then cut power to the propellers. Bloomberg reported that a software change had left the sensors more easily disturbed by rain and that the MK30 lacks the physical landing switches used on Amazon’s earlier MK27.

Investigation and response

The NTSB opened an investigation, numbered WPR25LA063 for one of the aircraft. A third-party copy of the NTSB record gives the probable cause as an improper altitude indication stemming from a recent software update, which resulted in a loss of engine power in flight.

Amazon voluntarily paused commercial deliveries at its two U.S. sites, College Station, Texas, and Tolleson, Arizona, on January 17, 2025, saying it needed to make software updates. The company said the Pendleton crashes were not the primary reason for the pause and that test flights at its closed range are meant to push aircraft past their limits. The FAA approved the updated software on March 12, 2025, and Amazon resumed deliveries later that month. An Amazon spokesperson said the company now uses multiple sensor inputs so that a single bad lidar reading cannot cause a crash.

What is not established

Bloomberg reported that light rain was falling and interfered with the sensors; the NTSB record lists visual weather conditions and its probable cause statement does not mention rain. The official NTSB report was not opened directly for this entry; the probable cause is taken from a third-party copy of the record and from news coverage.