Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery service has repeatedly dropped customer packages into swimming pools and ponds rather than on solid ground, according to a series of videos shared by local US news outlets. The latest incident, filmed by ABC7 News Bay Area on Wednesday, shows a drone hovering directly over a Texas customer's pool before opening its hatch and dropping the package straight into the water. The mishaps raise questions about the reliability of Amazon's drone delivery technology just as the company prepares to expand the service significantly across the United States.

This is not an isolated problem: a video from last July showed a drone in Arizona dropping a package beside a pool, only for the downdraught from its propellers to blow it into the water, while another from May showed a package bouncing off the ground near a pond before tumbling in. Amazon says its drones check for people, pets and vehicles before delivering, but apparently not for water. The company has also faced other safety incidents, including drones crashing into a crane, cutting an internet cable and colliding with an apartment building, and previously suspended deliveries in part of the Phoenix area after a crash. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Prime Air is set to expand to 500 US cities.