Palestinian authorities say deaths resulted from attempts to recover crates that fell in water after parachutes went wrong

Twelve people drowned trying to get to aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities have said, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel’s military campaign.

Video of the airdrop on Monday showed crowds of people running towards the beach, in Beit Lahiya in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled on to the sand.

In Washington, the Pentagon said three of the 18 bundles of airdropped aid into Gaza on Monday had parachute malfunctions and fell into the water, but could not confirm if anyone was killed trying to reach the aid.

Archive

  • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3416·
    8 months ago

    three of the 18 bundles of airdropped aid into Gaza on Monday had parachute malfunctions

    A 17% failure rate on “military equipment” is absolutely disgusting. Why the hell does America keep throwing dodgy projectile bombs on Gaza? At least make sure the stupid parachutes work before throwing them into one of worlds most densely populated areas.

    Or you know, force isael to let in aid trucks.

    • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
      33·
      8 months ago

      You are assuming that 17% was total failure, and this equipment is one time use on equipment so not at all invested in reliability. One line snapping is technically a malfunction - compare that to the reusable parachutes that carry people and watch the reliability difference.

      These are also aid packages that get ripped out of the back of a moving aircraft, fall in windy conditions and are then torn apart to be used. Would you rather this or half the number of packages that are now more reliable?

    • 🇦🇺𝕄𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕕𝕔𝕣𝕠𝕔𝕕𝕚𝕝𝕖English
      45·
      8 months ago

      Nothing is 100% reliable thats just how engineering and manufacturing work. Reliability is an exponential so is it worth doubling the price to have it be 10% failure instead of 17% they did the math and it would seem not.

      Im sure somone did a risk assesment and green stamped it.

      • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        8 months ago

        Im sure somone did a risk assesment and green stamped it.

        Yeah except this is the American military industrial complex. That 17% to 1% would have been a 2 cent increase for a parachute they’re probably charging 5k per unit.

        • 🇦🇺𝕄𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕕𝕔𝕣𝕠𝕔𝕕𝕚𝕝𝕖English
          21·
          8 months ago

          Sure a better parachute might cost that but the development, testing, aquasition, supply chain bs, quality control, manufacturing proccess, etc etc keeps costing more and more while u make small improvments on reliability. Its more like a half the falure rate can easily cost double the price as i said its exponential 1% is a lot further away cost wise than u might think.