More than 400 US military drones crashed in past 13 years, report says
Of 418 major drone crashes since 2011 identified by the Washington Post...
Sunday 22 June 2014
*** More than 400 large US military drones have crashed around the world in the past 13 years, a Washington Post investigation has found.
The Post obtained documents detailing accidents including collisions with homes, farms, runways, roads, waterways and even an air force transport plane in midair. Several drones vanished while at cruising altitude and were lost.
In April, an army drone crashed next to an elementary-school playground in Pennsylvania; in 2012 an unmanned navy surveillance aircraft nose-dived and ignited a wildfire in Maryland.
Of the 418 major drone crashes since September 2001 that the newspaper identified, about half happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and nearly a quarter were in the US. Almost 200 of the crashes were classed by the military as “class A”, meaning they destroyed the aircraft or caused at least $2m-worth of damage, though no loss of life was attributed to the accidents. Problems included pilot error, mechanical failure and communications challenges...
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