Of interest (and concern) for JP129 project staff is news that scores of Shadow unmanned aerial systems have crashed while performing missions in Iraq since 2004, many due to engine failures, according to classified documents posted on Wikileaks.org and analysed by Inside the Navy.
ITN found incident reports for approximately 200 UAV crashes during Operation Iraqi Freedom, 172 of which included information on the variety of UAV that failed.
The Shadow, which is used by both the Army and Marines, had more crashes, 89, than any other variety of UAV, followed by the ScanEagle, which suffered 50 crashes between late 2004 and the end of 2009.
Other varieties of UAVs that were included in ITN’s search were the Raven, which crashed eight times; the Pioneer, which was downed in 13 incidents; Dragon Eye, which crashed nine times; the TigerShark, which was named in one incident; and the Predator, which was reported as having crashed twice, once with a Hellfire missile attached.