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Reaper Drone Crash in Syracuse NY


collectsmedals
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collectsmedals

It just came out yesterday that one of the MQ-9A Reaper Drones assigned to the 174th Attack Wing in Syracuse New York at the Hancock Field Air National Guard base crashed at the end of the runway shortly after takeoff on June 25, 2020.  The crash is being blamed on pilot error and the design of the ground control station console. The crash occurred when the pilot mistakenly moved the power control lever instead of the flap control causing the drone to lose power.  The report said the two levers are only about an inch apart on the console.

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theOtherBarry

That's not what caused the crash. The USAF accident report said that the second "mistake" the pilot made was to pull the flaps lever back so that the they were on full down. This caused the Reaper to plummet. That was left out of the Syracuse.com story.

 

The pilot deliberately crashed the drone to keep it from going down into the residential area a quarter mile away. For some reason, the air force said that was a mistake. And then they kept the whole thing quiet until Stars and Stripes reported it on April 12th. That's where Syracuse.com got it from.

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manayunkman

So was the drone in trouble during take off and the pilot deliberately crashed it to avoid crashing in a populated area? 

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collectsmedals
2 hours ago, theOtherBarry said:

The pilot deliberately crashed the drone to keep it from going down into the residential area a quarter mile away.

That sounds like a good reason to me, and like you said that is not what was in the news in Syracuse. Sounds like the pilot should get a commendation instead of being blamed for a mistake.

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theOtherBarry

He won't. They don't want to admit that the protestors are right - it's too dangerous to fly these out of that airport. Here's how close it came to taking out a convenience store:

oops3.JPG

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