NATO’s First Combat Casualty of the War in Libya Was a Robot
June 22nd, 2011Via: Wired:
NATO has suffered its first apparent combat casualty of the three-month-old war in Libya. And it’s a robot.
Wing Cmdr. Mike Bracken said the alliance lost contact with the unmanned rotorcraft this morning. “This drone helicopter was performing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance over Libya to monitor pro-Gadhafi forces threatening the civilian population,” Bracken said.
Libyan state TV showed wreckage of the drone and claimed it was from a manned Apache gunship Gadhafi’s forces had shot down 85 miles east of Tripoli. But the debris’ color, shape and markings prove it was from an MQ-8 Fire Scout, a so-called “Vertical-Takeoff Unmanned Aerial Vehicle” built by Northrop Grumman.
