PAPILLION, Neb. (KMTV) — The Omaha metro area is set to become the 11th city in the United States to use Amazon Prime Air, the company's self-flying drone delivery system. Deliveries are expected to begin out of a Papillion warehouse by the end of summer.
The drones deliver packages under 5 pounds within about 8 miles of the Papillion facility. Amazon will operate 12 drones in the market.
"There will just be 12 drones and in theory if there's enough demand, if everybody wants to order they could all be in the air at once," Senior Manager of Prime Air Commercial Operations Josh Brundage said.
The drones fly between 100 and 300 feet in the air and are monitored by a team at the facility.
"It lands and takes off vertically like a helicopter and then it kinda transitions into this attitude for forward flight on its way to delivery," the representative said.
Thousands of Prime Air deliveries have already taken place across the country, but not without incident. CNN posted video from February of a drone in Texas crashing into an apartment building. I asked Brundage what would happen if an incident like that occurred here, and the drone fell on a person.
"Just like any other incident we have a full response plan so even in the event a drone makes a landing outside of the area because it needs to we have a full ability to go retrieve it very quickly as I mentioned we work very closely even through the building process with all local law enforcement," Brundage said.
Amazon said neighbor feedback has included noise concerns.
"I think it's curiosity there's certainly concerns related to noise and we've done our best to provide clarity on that," Head of Central U.S. Expansion and Economic Development Jason Vangalis said.
A sound comparison described the drones as similar to a vacuum cleaner. And in Nebraska, the weather is not always ideal. Like airplanes, the team and drones can monitor severity of rain and snow, and head back to the facility if the weather becomes too bad.
Brundage says that each drone completes a proficiency test run before serving customers.
No exact launch date has been announced, but Amazon expects drone deliveries to begin in Papillion by the end of summer.
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