Amazon drone makes a splash after dropping a package in a Texas woman's pool: 'We're living in the Jetsons era'

Luckily, cardboard floats.

An Amazon transportation drone dropped a Texas woman's package into her backyard excavation connected Monday, flummoxing the woman, who told Business Insider she didn't deliberation she selected the drone transportation option.

"I was wrong the location and I heard it," Lindsey Austen said connected Thursday. "I was like, 'Is the 2nd coming of Jesus happening?'"

The incident, which Austen captured connected video, went viral connected X connected Thursday. In the clip, an Amazon drone hovers supra Austen's excavation earlier releasing a package consecutive into the water.

"After I vanished recording, I ran and sewage it really quick," Austen said. "The container was wholly bedewed and drenched."

In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson did not reside the Texas splashdown directly, but said that "incidents" pinch its transportation drones "are highly rare."

"When a transportation doesn't spell arsenic planned, we study from it to amended the acquisition and tae steps to forestall it from happening successful the future," the spokesperson, Lindsay Hamilton, said.

Launched successful 2022, Amazon announced this week that it would grow its drone transportation work to astir 500 much cities and towns by the extremity of the year. Customers tin bid thing by drone that weighs 5 pounds aliases little and fits successful a ample shoebox, the institution says. That's the mostly of the millions of packages ordered connected Amazon each day.

Austen said the package contained barren feline nutrient and footwear insoles for her daughter, neither of which was damaged by the h2o landing.

The resident of Richmond, a suburb of Houston, said she included those items, on pinch immoderate ray bulbs, successful 1 "normal" order. Soon aft ordering, however, she sewage a notification that the feline nutrient and insoles were coming via drone.

"I benignant of deliberation for illustration excavation was an error, to beryllium honest, because I didn't prime it," Austen said of the drone transportation option.

To prime the drone option, which Amazon calls Prime Air, customers must confirm their transportation location utilizing the representation characteristic successful the Amazon app, according to an Amazon news release.

The drones are not flown by pilots, but navigate autonomously utilizing onboard cameras and sensors.

Austen said her family has ne'er ordered thing pinch drones before.

"I ordered for illustration I usually do each azygous time," she said.

Austen said that though the package arrived quickly — successful astir 20 minutes, she said — the large sound dissuaded her from selecting the action again.

Still, she said, watching a drone present her Amazon bid felt distinctly futuristic.

"It's bizarre," she said. "We're surviving successful the Jetsons era."