Gandhinagar: Soon after takeoff from the city of Porbandar this morning, an Indian Navy drone crashed here in Gujarat today. The drone was on a assigned routine surveillance exercise and crashed after takeoff. Named as Heron UAV or unmanned aerial vehicle, the drone is of Israel make.
In an official statement the Indian Navy confirmed that there has been no kind of injury or loss of life due the drone crash. Initial inquiry was conducted to confirm the cause of the accident and it suggested engine failure as the cause. An inquiry has been called to analyze and carry out an investigation and also to avail the details of the report citing the cause of the crash.
“There has been no injury to anyone. Preliminary inputs indicate failure of the RPA engine,” a navy spokesperson stated.
All the three Indian Armed Forces are using the Heron UAV model drones since 2001. So there are different versions of this drone and the investigation will reveal the actual cause of the crash. As India plans to buy more drones from Israel in the next few years, it needs to finalize the technical aspect to select further models.
The agencies does not have formal data on crashes which involve Heron UAVs, but the average crash rate of these drones suggest that after 2013, there have been only one percent crashes, according to the Indian Navy statement.
The Heron is a Israeli made medium-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle which was developed by the Israel Aerospace Industries. The drone is of long-endurance quality. It has the capability of carrying out operations for about 52 continuous hours at a height of 35,000 feet. The drone can navigate through the inbuilt system of GPS device set inside. It can perform pre-programmed flights which does not require any type of remote assistance. And apart from that, manual flights using a remote controller from the ground control station can also be conducted.
The Heron can carry load an array of sensors, which includes thermo-graphic camera called as infrared and also the visible light airborne ground surveillance, intelligent systems like COMINT and ELINT and other types of radars. The system of Heron is also capable of target acquisition and artillery adjustment.The payload sensors given in the drone can communicate with control station on ground in real time with the help of either direct line of sight data link or via an airborne /satellite relay.
The drone that crashed this time was an RPA or Remotely Piloted Aircraft, suggesting that it was being operated on the manual mode before the crash. The timing of the crash was declared as 10 am and the site where it crashed is very close to the air base in Porbandar district of Gujarat.