We recently covered an article about how Google has plans for providing internet to the whole world. One of the projects in this context was Project Loon which comprises of employing the use of balloons to provide internet. Wondering how can that go wrong? Well, last week one of the balloons managed to crash in Washington State into power lines and a power outage that lasted for five hours had to be faced by the nearby citizens.
This particular balloon began its journey (test flight) from Nevada and made its way north where upon reaching the Washington State there was some problem with landing (not identified yet) and the balloon crashed into a power pole at a remote location. According to the utility employees; the balloon had ‘blinking lights’.
As per the information released by Google, these balloons are capable of staying airborne for almost 100 days, however as expected, test flights last way shorter than that. For this particular test flight Google ensured that no other aircrafts were in area by intimating Federal Aviation Administration of the test flight. However, with regular flights taking place it would become imminent to take precautions and set up some rules and regulations.
Google Loon is a great project and we hope that over time this technology will become more reliable and safer.
