A US Navy MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft appears to have declared an in-flight emergency over the Persian Gulf before rapidly losing altitude, according to open-source flight tracking data.
The aircraft, serial 169804, was tracked on platforms including Flightradar24 emitting a 7700 squawk, the standard code for a general emergency. Data indicates the drone dropped from around 52,000 feet to roughly 12,750 feet within minutes while operating north of Bahrain.
Tracking suggests the aircraft was flying a typical high-altitude surveillance profile before the sudden descent. Its track then ended over the Gulf, though it remains unclear whether this reflects a loss of the aircraft or simply a loss of tracking data.
The incident was first highlighted by UK Defence Journal senior editor Jon, who monitors military aviation activity using open-source tracking tools. There has been no official confirmation from the US military at the time of writing.
The MQ-4C Triton is a high-altitude, long-endurance maritime surveillance drone derived from the RQ-4 Global Hawk family. It is designed to provide persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance over wide maritime areas and routinely operates alongside P-8A Poseidon aircraft.
The type has been deployed extensively across the US Central Command area of responsibility, including the Gulf region. According to open-source reporting, some Triton airframes previously based in the UAE were repositioned to Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy earlier this year.
UK Defence Journal has contacted US forces for comment.
It remains unclear what caused the emergency or whether the aircraft was recovered.
Located in Italy, wow another capability the US can’t deploy without NATO.
Wrong. Again. My but you Brits are ignorant.
In other news Healy just gave an update on Russian submarine operation over our pipelines north of the UK. Seems the entire operation was monitored from start to finish without the Russians knowledge. They apparently used an Akula SSN to try and divert from the actions being carried out by two smaller submarines but it didn’t work.
Apparently they didn’t actually do anything to any pipelines they were testing to see if they could do something covertly and they failed.
Even the Russian navy are a bunch of donkeys now. Floating around in 40 year old SSN’s that were pretty loud in the 80’s much less now and thinking this was some form of diversion.
I did read somewhere that the US has lost 11 Reapers too from their unmanned fleet. Given the losses to the manned aircraft which seems to be a high count too, maybe the operational use of all needs looking at. Seems they have learned nothing from the Ukraine eh?