The US Air Force's flagship Reaper drone is plagued by a mysterious technical fault which causes the craft to fall out of the sky, a report says.
An investigation by the Washington Post found that the drone - which conducts surveillance and airstrikes against Islamic State - has been hit with a number of technical problems.
It said that electrical faults have caused 20 Reaper drones to be destroyed or to suffer at least $2m in damage in the last year - the worst annual toll ever.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that investigations have traced the problem to a faulty starter-generator, but cannot work out why it keeps failing.
Since 2001, more than 400 large US military drones have crashed.
The Post said: "Military drones have slammed into homes, farms, runways, highways, waterways and, in one case, an Air Force C-130 Hercules transport plane in midair.
"No one has died in a drone accident, but the documents show that many catastrophes have been narrowly averted, often by a few feet, or a few seconds, or pure luck."
In one incident, documents obtained show that a $3.8m Predator drone crashed near Kandahar because the pilot did not realise she had been flying the aircraft upside down.
Another crashed because the pilot pressed the wrong button on his joystick.
No-one has died in a drone incident, but errors have resulted in a number of near-misses.
0 nhận xét:
Đăng nhận xét