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If approved, Amazon drones would operate within a 7.5-mile radius of Westborough, reaching 15 communities west of Boston — and raising questions about noise, safety, and delivery mishaps.
It seems like a scene from a sci-fi film: Videos of drones darting through the sky, stopping, and dropping a package on a doorstep before buzzing off.
But that reality has already taken shape in several places across the country as Amazon plans to expand its drone delivery service to 500 U.S. cities and towns this year.
The rollout hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing. Videos online show drones dropping a package into the middle of a swimming pool, crashing into the side of a crane, and, in another, slamming into the side of an apartment building.
So when an Amazon representative showed up to the Westborough Planning Board hearing last week with plans to expand into their community and 14 others nearby, the residents and town officials were concerned.
“Just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should do it,” said Jennifer Parent, a Westborough resident at the Sept. 15 Planning Board hearing. “I think people really need to start standing up to the tech industries.”
The Planning Board continued the meeting until Oct. 7, when members are expected to vote on the site plans for upgrades to the facility needed to accommodate the drone operation.
Regulatory hurdles:
The Planning Board does not have the authority to approve or deny the drone deliveries. The Federal Aviation Administration regulates drone operations in the airspace, including approvals and environmental assessments.
The FAA approved Amazon in 2024 to operate its delivery drones beyond a visual line of sight.
Amazon is still awaiting approval from the Aeronautics Division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, which regulates landing areas and their interactions with other airspace users.
There is no set timeline yet for when the drones could take flight in Westborough. Tareq Wafaie, a member of Amazon’s economic development team, told the board the project is still in the approval and community outreach phase.
Amazon held a community meeting Sept. 23 at the DoubleTree in Westborough to hear from residents of Westborough and surrounding communities.
“We are always exploring new ways to get customers a wider selection at faster speeds,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to Boston.com.
Amazon confirmed that it is working with Westborough to expand its drone delivery service.
The company did not respond to a question about whether another meeting is planned.
How drone deliveries work:
At the Planning Board meeting, Wafaie outlined Amazon’s plans for the same-day delivery facility at 64 Otis St. in Westborough. The electric, fully autonomous drones are manufactured in Seattle and can carry packages weighing up to 5 pounds to locations within 7.5 miles of the facility.
According to a map presented at the meeting, neighboring towns such as Northborough, Shrewsbury, most of Grafton and Southborough, parts of Worcester, and others will be offered this service.
They typically cruise at 60 to 74 miles-per-hour, and they’re designed to operate in cold, snow, heat, and moderate light wind.
Amazon hopes to eventually make 1,000 deliveries a day from the facility, though its other operating sites currently average about 500 to 600 deliveries daily.
The drones quickly climb to about 100 feet after vertically taking off to clear obstacles, then cruise between 205 and 370 feet above the ground, below the 400-foot regulatory limit. Before delivering a package, they descend to about 13 feet over the customer’s property.
Amazon addresses noise and privacy concerns:
Wafaie said the drones are loudest during takeoff and landing, at about 65 decibels — comparable to traffic on a residential street and quieter than a garbage truck. At cruising altitude, he said, the sound is mostly unnoticeable indoors and is roughly comparable to an electric toothbrush heard at arm’s length outdoors.
He said the drones also have multiple safety fail-safes, including redundant propellers so they can still land safely if one fails. They also have “detect and avoid” cameras and sensors that automatically steer them away from objects in the air and downward-facing cameras that cancel a delivery and send the drone back to the station if something like a child, pet, or other obstacle enters the drop zone.
Wafaie also said the drones are designed with safety and privacy as the top priorities. The onboard cameras and sensors are for navigation and collision avoidance. He noted there are no live video cameras and all image data is encrypted. Amazon said that it does not sell or commercially collect data from these flights.
“Do they have cameras? Yes,” Wafaie said. But he said nobody is viewing the cameras.
He continued, “We do not sell data. We do not collect data. Privacy is just as important as safety to a company like Amazon, and so I just wanted to make that very clear upfront.”
Concerns continue:
Planning Board chairwoman Hazel Nourse still had concerns.
“I’ve heard from a number of people in town that are concerned, obviously, about the peace and quiet — which we enjoy when being outdoors — by having drones flying overhead,” Nourse said. “And it’s not just the sound; it’s the drone itself. It just takes your eye and catches.”
Nourse asked if the city has any control over where drones can and cannot fly. In response, Wafaie said it would be very rare to impose no-fly zones, noting that the FAA controls airspace.
“What I’m hearing is we have no control,” said John Gelcich, vice-chair of the Planning Board.
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