A balloon from Google's Project Loon got caught on power lines in south-central Washington state yesterday, causing outages to some residents in the area.
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NBC News reported that the weather balloon-like object landed in in the power cables at around 1 a.m., and it took crews until 6 a.m. to fully clear the scene. The local Yakima Herald Republic reported the story last week.
Project Loon is a program that plans to use high-altitude balloons to beam down internet to places in the world that get little or no service. A fleet of balloons equipped with technology that emits an internet signal will float above commercial air space to provide service to those who don't have it.
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Google doesn't just land the balloons anywhere or hope they come down on their own, but chooses certain landing sites and recovery zones ahead of time. However, it can only do so much about weather patterns and shifts in the wind that cause incidents like the one in Washington last week. Google communicates with the FAA to notify them of landings, and has done the extensive research and preparation to minimize these events from occurring. This particular balloon originally launched in Nevada, and must have had its landing course altered by the wind.
Back in March, I wrote about how Google may be squaring off against Facebook in the battle for internet-beaming air space, as it was rumored the social media company was purchasing drone technology to accomplish the same goal as Project Loon. In a turn of events, it was Google who purchased Titan Aerospace last month instead, perhaps seeking to join the two methods--both of which have pros and cons related to safety and cost.
