Posted on 03/17/2015 4:11:00 PM PDT by the scotsman
'THE US army has reportedly lost one of its hi-tech £9m drones in Syria sparking fears that secret data could fall into enemy hands. The unmanned aircraft (UAV) was flying over Syria's Latakia province when it was shot out of the sky by the country's air defences, state media said.
But a US official said it was unclear how the drone was taken down and said the incident is being investigated.
The lost aircraft is believed to be an unarmed MQ-9 Reaper which costs $13.77m (£9.33m) and is used mainly for intelligence gathering and surveillance.
The US has built 104 of the 11-metre aircraft since they were introduced in May 2007.
The air incident bears disturbing similarities to Iran's capture of an American UAV in December 2011 when the country's cyberwarfare unit claimed to have landed a drone after hacking into it.
The Middle East nation then extracted secret data from the unmanned aircraft prompting fears that US technology could end up in China or Russia.
Iran released footage from the drone in February 2013 to prove that it had "fully decoded" all the data.
Earlier today, American forces ramped up the battle against Islamic State by striking seven militant targets in Syria and carrying out 12 strikes with coalition members in Iraq.
The strikes in Syria hit targets near al Haskah and Kobani, the US Army said in a statement.
In Iraq, the United States and allies carried out 12 strikes, including five near Fallujah and two near Mosul, it added.
The strikes were conducted during a 24-hour period on Monday and Tuesday.'
(Excerpt) Read more at express.co.uk ...
This is how Obama helps his friends ,remember Iran got one
“LOST” accidentally on purpose.
Don’t they have an auto self-destruct device?? Just asking.
Smooth move, Ex-Lax.
In related news:
Pilot Uses Kickstarter To Adopt Predator Drone After Deployment
http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/02/pilot-kickstarter-to-adopt-predator/
5.56mm
Who are these Guys
Where was it lost??? ISIS territory or Assad s territory???
Seems like the 0bama regime is trying to give our enemies arms...
5.56mm
“Don’t they have an auto self-destruct device?”
That was my first thought. It is not nearly as complex to do as the craft is itself.
there is nothing, and i mean NOTHING, in that sh!thole worth the loss of this drone.
Yep, and Clinton made sure that Red China got our guidance technology when he was in office. Our enemies just love it when dimacrats are in the white house.
They are All Plastic,
ain’t much left after a hard crash.
All modern US sensitive technology systems with any potential at all to fall into enemy hands are supposed to be designed with some measure of anti-tamper (AT) features in place to prevent reverse engineering and sensitive information extraction. I would sincerely hope this system was compliant with AT requirements to some extent, else it had no business being used on a mission like this.
No.
This story says that it was an MQ-9, but it was actually an MQ-1.
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