1.
Los Angeles Times January 1, 2002
Global Hawk Crashes in Afghanistan in a Setback for High-Tech Drones
By PAUL RICHTER
WASHINGTON -- An unmanned U.S. spy aircraft has crashed in Afghanistan, U.S. military officials said Monday, in a reminder that one of the most important new technologies in the war against terrorism is fragile and only partially developed.
The RQ-4A Global Hawk that crashed during a routine flight Sunday was rushed into the theater in November to help U.S. forces track enemy fighters. Pentagon officials say the Global Hawk and the older, lower-flying RQ-1 Predator drone will be central to their effort to track down Islamic militants in South Asia and around the world.
But the crash, which occurred for reasons that were still unclear Monday, means U.S. forces have already lost one of two Global Hawks they had in the theater. Several Predators have also crashed in surveillance missions in Afghanistan and Iraq since the war began, analysts say. The losses come at a time when Pentagon officials have already expressed concern that their worldwide anti-terror campaign will be crimped by the limited availability of the surveillance aircraft.
U.S. military officials at Central Command in Tampa, Fla., which is overseeing the war, said the Global Hawk crashed about midday Sunday as it was returning from a routine patrol in or around Afghanistan. They said the crash was not the result of enemy fire, but declined to provide other details.
2.
Wednesday July 10, 2002 5:00 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - An unmanned U.S. spy plane crashed in Pakistan on Wednesday, U.S. officials said.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the cause appeared to be engine failure rather than hostile fire.
It was the second Global Hawk aircraft to crash since the war in Afghanistan began last October. The first, in late December, went down in an undisclosed country near Afghanistan. The Air Force said last week that an accident investigation pinpointed structural failure as the cause of that crash. The investigators traced the problem to an improperly installed bolt that caused a control rod to fail.
The officials said U.S. troops had been dispatched to the crash site in Pakistan to examine the wreckage.