A Texas woman says she will not use Amazon’s drone delivery service again after her first Prime Air order landed in her swimming pool.
Lindsey Austen, a Richmond, Texas, resident, received an alert on Monday, August 17, that her package was out for delivery via Amazon’s Prime Air program, according to footage licensed by Storyful. The 34-year-old heard the drone’s loud buzzing and raced outside to record the newly rolled-out service in action.
Instead of a smooth landing on her lawn, Austen watched as the drone hovered above her pool, opened its hatch, and dropped the package straight into the water.
“When it went into the pool, I was shocked,” Austen said in the video she recorded. “I don’t think I’ll be wanting any more drone deliveries.”
It remains unclear what was inside the now-soaked parcel. The video of the delivery failure went viral on social media Thursday, spreading rapidly across platforms as viewers reacted to the spectacle of high-tech logistics meeting backyard calamity.
The timing proved especially awkward for Amazon. The viral clip surfaced just one day after the retail giant announced plans to expand its Prime Air program sixfold across 500 U.S. Cities by year’s end. The company said the airborne shipping service would reach hundreds of new areas including suburbs of Chicago, Atlanta, Syracuse, and Cleveland, with delivery times as fast as 30 minutes.
Each drone site is set to serve multiple cities within a metro area, primarily flying in suburban zones away from skyscrapers and major airports. The ultrafast service has already delivered hundreds of thousands of packages this year, though it is limited to one package at a time weighing up to five pounds.
Amazon spokesperson Allie Payne pushed back against the idea that such failures are common, telling KHOU11 that incidents like Austen’s are rare.
“Prime Air provides customers with fast, reliable delivery across a broad selection of products and the response from customers using Prime Air has been overwhelmingly positive,” Payne said.
“Incidents are extremely rare, and when a delivery doesn’t go as planned, we learn from it to improve the experience and take steps to prevent it from happening in the future,” the spokesperson continued.
“Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee ensures customers can shop with confidence, knowing that we’ll make it right by offering a refund or replacement in the rare instances when items do not arrive as expected.”
The service remains free for Amazon Prime members ordering more than $50 worth of goods, $2.99 for smaller orders, and $4.99 for non-members.
In the viral moment that spawned the headlines, Austen’s footage shows the MK30 drone hovering deliberately over her pool before releasing its payload, raising questions about how the autonomous system selected its drop zone. The drone’s propeller wash visibly disturbed the water surface moments before the package splashed down.
The Richmond incident is not the first mishap involving Amazon’s drone fleet. In February, an MK30 drone crashed into an apartment building in Richardson, Texas, breaking apart and sending debris to the ground. No injuries were reported in that incident, which Amazon said it was actively investigating. In November, a Prime Air drone contacted a cable in Waco, Texas, while in October two MK30 drones struck a construction crane within minutes of each other during operations in Tolleson, Arizona.
Amazon has continued expanding Prime Air operations while refining the MK30 platform, which replaced earlier drone models used in initial testing. The company has said the new design improves safety, noise performance, and operational reliability.
Amazon said it aims to begin Prime Air deliveries in its newly announced expansion cities later this year.