Milcom Monitoring Post Profiles

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Unmanned Navy craft flies into restricted airspace


The AP and Atlanta Journal Constitution are reporting that a US Navy unmanned MQ-8B Fire Scout went off course during testing and entered restricted airspace near the nation's capital earlier this month.

The aircraft was supposed to fly a preprogrammed route over the Webster Field Annex at the naval air station at Patuxent River, Md. During the test on August 2, controllers lost the link to the aircraft and it flew off route into the restricted area. According to a Navy spokesman, Lt. Myers Vasquez the craft was about 40 miles away from Washington. The Federal Aviation Administration was notified that it was a Navy craft so they were aware and monitoring it, Vasquez said.

The complete story can be found online at:
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/unmanned-navy-craft-flies-599699.html