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US soldiers secure humanitarian aid, scheduled to be airdropped over Gaza, aboard a cargo plane on March 1. (Christopher Huppenthal/USAF/Handout/Reuters)

The United States joined several other countries in airdropping aid into Gaza, which is suffering from a humanitarian crisis.

Israel severely restricts ground aid deliveries, which fall far short of the amounts needed to prevent famine in the Strip, so these airdrops are expected to provide a lifeline to civilians.

But the United Nations and aid agencies have questioned their effectiveness in easing the situation, and their risks were clearly demonstrated on Friday when a malfunctioning parachute caused aid platforms to shoot out of the sky at breakneck speed, killing five people without expecting it.

Pictures and traps: Airdrops bypass the stringent checks at ground checkpoints, so they are clearly a quick way to get supplies to a conflict zone. But despite this advantage, aid agencies say the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits.

For starters, they are more expensive. The World Food Program says airdrops cost up to seven times more than ground deliveries. They also have very limited delivery capacity. For example, a truck can transport nearly 10 times the amount that a plane can: approximately 20 to 30 metric tons, according to the United Nations.

“Aid workers always complain that airdrops are good photo opportunities but a terrible way to deliver aid,” says Richard Gowan, director of the UN International Crisis Group.

Experts also questioned whether countries have plans for assistance once it is on the ground. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, says that airdrops often lead to chaos.