{"id":19474,"date":"2012-06-04T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=19474"},"modified":"2012-06-04T00:06:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T23:06:12","slug":"the-crash-and-burn-future-of-robot-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/06\/the-crash-and-burn-future-of-robot-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"

What 70 Downed Drones Tell Us about the New American Way of War<\/em><\/p>\n

American fighter jets screamed over the Iraqi countryside heading for the MQ-1 Predator drone, while its crew in California stood by helplessly.\u00a0 What had begun as an ordinary reconnaissance mission was now taking a ruinous turn.\u00a0 In an instant, the jets attacked and then it was all over.\u00a0 The Predator, one of the Air Force\u2019s workhorse hunter\/killer robots, had been obliterated.<\/p>\n

An account of the spectacular end of that nearly $4 million drone in November 2007 is contained in a collection of Air Force accident investigation documents recently examined by TomDispatch.\u00a0 They catalog more than 70 catastrophic Air Force drone mishaps since 2000, each resulting in the loss of an aircraft or property damage of $2 million or more.<\/p>\n

These official reports, some obtained by TomDispatch through the Freedom of Information Act, offer new insights into a largely covert, yet highly touted war-fighting, assassination, and spy program involving armed robots that are significantly less reliable than previously acknowledged.\u00a0 These planes, the latest wonder weapons in the U.S. military arsenal, are tested, launched, and piloted from a shadowy network of more than 60 bases spread around the globe<\/a>, often in support of elite teams of special operations forces<\/a>.\u00a0 Collectively, the Air Force documents offer a remarkable portrait of modern drone warfare, one rarely found in a decade of generally triumphalist or awestruck press accounts<\/a> that seldom mention the limitations<\/a> of drones, much less their mission failures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The aerial disasters described draw attention not only to the technical limitations of drone warfare, but to larger conceptual flaws inherent in such operations.\u00a0 Launched and landed by aircrews close to battlefields in places like Afghanistan, the drones are controlled during missions by pilots and sensor operators — often multiple teams over many hours — from bases in places like Nevada and North Dakota.\u00a0 They are sometimes also monitored by \u201cscreeners\u201d from private security contractors at stateside bases like Hurlburt Field in Florida.\u00a0 (A recent McClatchy report revealed<\/a> that it takes nearly 170 people to keep a single Predator in the air for 24 hours.)<\/p>\n

In other words, drone missions, like the robots themselves, have many moving parts and much, it turns out, can and does go wrong.\u00a0 In that November 2007 Predator incident in Iraq, for instance, an electronic failure caused the robotic aircraft to engage its self-destruct mechanism and crash, after which U.S. jets destroyed the wreckage to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.\u00a0 In other cases, drones — officially known as remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs — broke down, escaped human control and oversight, or self-destructed for reasons ranging from pilot error and bad weather to mechanical failure in Afghanistan, Djibouti, the Gulf of Aden, Iraq, Kuwait, and various other unspecified or classified foreign locations, as well as in the United States.<\/p>\n

In 2001, Air Force Predator drones flew 7,500 hours.\u00a0 By the close of last year, that number topped 70,000.\u00a0 As the tempo<\/a> of robotic air operations has steadily increased, crashes have, not surprisingly, become more frequent.\u00a0 In 2001, just two Air Force drones were destroyed in accidents.\u00a0 In 2008, eight drones fell from the sky.\u00a0 Last year, the number reached 13.\u00a0 (Accident rates<\/a> are, however, dropping according to an Air Force report relying on figures from 2009.)<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that the 70-plus accidents recorded in those Air Force documents represent only drone crashes investigated by the Air Force under a rigid set of rules. Many other drone mishaps have not been included in the Air Force statistics.\u00a0 Examples include a haywire MQ-9 Reaper<\/a> drone that had to be shot out of the Afghan skies by a fighter jet in 2009, a remotely-operated Navy helicopter that went down in Libya last June, an unmanned aerial vehicle whose camera was reportedly taken by Afghan insurgents after a crash in August 2011, an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel<\/a> lost during a spy mission in Iran last December, and the recent crash<\/a> of an MQ-9 Reaper in the Seychelles Islands.<\/p>\n

You Don\u2019t Need a Weatherman… Or Do You?<\/strong><\/p>\n

How missions are carried out — and sometimes fail — is apparent from the declassified reports, including one provided to TomDispatch by the Air Force detailing a June 2011 crash.\u00a0 Late that month, a Predator drone took off from Jalalabad Air Base in Afghanistan to carry out a surveillance mission in support of ground forces.\u00a0 Piloted by a member of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the robotic craft ran into rough weather, causing the pilot to ask for permission to abandon the troops below.<\/p>\n

His commander never had a chance to respond.\u00a0 Lacking weather avoidance equipment found on more sophisticated aircraft or on-board sensors to clue the pilot in to rapidly deteriorating weather conditions, and with a sandstorm interfering with ground radar, \u201csevere weather effects\u201d overtook the Predator.\u00a0 In an instant, the satellite link between pilot and plane was severed.\u00a0 When it momentarily flickered back to life, the crew could see that the drone was in an extreme nosedive.\u00a0 They then lost the datalink for a second and final time.\u00a0 A few minutes later, troops on the ground radioed in to say that the $4 million drone had crashed near them.<\/p>\n

A month earlier, a Predator drone took off from the tiny African nation of Djibouti in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes operations<\/a> in Afghanistan as well as Yemen, Djibouti, and Somalia, among other nations.\u00a0 According to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, about eight hours into the flight, the mission crew noticed a slow oil leak.\u00a0 Ten hours later, they handed the drone off to a local aircrew whose assignment was to land it at Djibouti\u2019s Ambouli Airport, a joint civilian\/military facility adjacent to Camp Lemonier, a U.S. base in the country.<\/p>\n

That mission crew — both the pilot and sensor operator — had been deployed from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and had logged a combined 1,700 hours flying Predators.\u00a0 They were considered \u201cexperienced\u201d by the Air Force.\u00a0 On this day, however, the electronic sensors that measure their drone\u2019s altitude were inaccurate, while low clouds and high humidity affected its infrared sensors and set the stage for disaster.<\/p>\n

An investigation eventually found that, had the crew performed proper instrument cross-checks, they would have noticed a 300-400 foot discrepancy in their altitude.\u00a0 Instead, only when the RPA broke through the clouds did the sensor operator realize just how close to the ground it was.\u00a0 Six seconds later, the drone crashed to earth, destroying itself and one of its Hellfire missiles.<\/p>\n

Storms, clouds, humidity, and human error aren\u2019t the only natural dangers for drones.\u00a0 In a November 2008 incident, a mission crew at Kandahar Air Field<\/a> launched a Predator on a windy day.\u00a0 Just five minutes into the flight, with the aircraft still above the sprawling American mega-base, the pilot realized that the plane had already deviated from its intended course.\u00a0 To get it back on track, he initiated a turn that — due to the aggressive nature of the maneuver, wind conditions, drone design, and the unbalanced weight of a missile on just one wing — sent the plane into a roll. Despite the pilot’s best efforts, the craft entered a tailspin, crashed on the base, and burst into flames.<\/p>\n

Going Rogue<\/strong><\/p>\n

On occasion, RPAs have simply escaped from human control.\u00a0 Over the course of eight hours on a late February day in 2009, for example, five different crews passed off the controls of a Predator drone, one to the next, as it flew over Iraq.\u00a0 Suddenly, without warning, the last of them, members of the North Dakota Air National Guard at Hector International Airport in Fargo, lost communication with the plane.\u00a0 At that point no one — not the pilot, nor the sensor operator, nor a local mission crew — knew where the drone was or what it was doing.\u00a0 Neither transmitting nor receiving data or commands, it had, in effect, gone rogue.\u00a0 Only later was it determined that a datalink failure had triggered the drone\u2019s self-destruct mechanism, sending it into an unrecoverable tailspin and crash within 10 minutes of escaping human control.<\/p>\n

In November 2009, a Predator launched from Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan lost touch with its human handlers 20 minutes after takeoff and simply disappeared.\u00a0 When the mission crew was unable to raise the drone, datalink specialists were brought in but failed to find the errant plane.\u00a0 Meanwhile, air traffic controllers, who had lost the plane on radar, could not even locate its transponder signal.\u00a0 Numerous efforts to make contact failed.\u00a0 Two days later, at the moment the drone would have run out of fuel, the Air Force declared the Predator \u201clost.\u201d \u00a0It took eight days for its wreckage to be located.<\/p>\n

Crash Course<\/strong><\/p>\n

In mid-August 2004, while drone operations in the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility were running at high tempo, a Predator mission crew began hearing a cascade of warning alarms indicating engine and alternator failure, as well as a possible engine fire.\u00a0 When the sensor operator used his camera to scan the aircraft, it didn\u2019t take long to spot the problem.\u00a0 Its tail had burst into flames.\u00a0 Shortly afterward, it became uncontrollable and crashed.<\/p>\n

In January 2007, a Predator drone was flying somewhere in the CENTCOM region (above one of 20 countries in the Greater Middle East).\u00a0 About 14 hours into a 20-hour\u00a0mission, the aircraft began to falter.\u00a0 For 15 minutes its engine was failing, but the information it was sending back remained within normal parameters, so the mission crew failed to notice.\u00a0 Only at the last minute did they become aware that their drone was dying.\u00a0 As an investigation later determined, an expanding crack in the drone\u2019s crankshaft caused the engine to seize up.\u00a0 The pilot put the aircraft into a glide toward an unpopulated area.\u00a0 Higher headquarters then directed that he should intentionally crash it, since a rapid reaction force would not be able to reach it quickly and it was carrying two Hellfire missiles as well as unspecified \u201cclassified equipment.\u201d\u00a0 Days later, its remains were recovered.<\/p>\n

The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare<\/strong><\/p>\n

In spite of all the technical limitations of remote-controlled war spelled out in the Air Force investigation files, the U.S. is doubling down on drones.\u00a0 Under the president\u2019s new military strategy<\/a>, the Air Force is projected to see its share of the budgetary pie rise and flying robots are expected<\/a> to be a major part of that expansion.<\/p>\n

Already, counting the Army\u2019s thousands of tiny drones, one in three military aircraft — close to 7,500 machines<\/a> — are robots.\u00a0 According to official figures provided to TomDispatch, roughly 285 of them are Air Force Predator, Reaper, or Global Hawk drones. \u00a0The Air Force’s arsenal also includes more advanced Sentinels<\/a>, Avengers<\/a>, and other classified unmanned aircraft.\u00a0 <\/strong>A report published by the Congressional Budget Office last year, revealed that \u201cthe Department of Defense plans to purchase about 730 new medium-sized and large unmanned aircraft systems\u201d during the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

Over the last decade, the United States has increasingly turned to drones in an effort to win its wars.\u00a0 The Air Force investigation files examined by TomDispatch suggest a more extensive use of drones in Iraq than has previously been reported.\u00a0 But in Iraq, as in Afghanistan, America\u2019s preeminent wonder weapon failed to bring the U.S. mission anywhere close to victory.\u00a0 Effective as the spearhead of a program to cripple<\/a> al-Qaeda in Pakistan, drone warfare in that country\u2019s tribal borderlands has also alienated<\/a> almost the entire population of 190 million<\/a>.\u00a0 In other words, an estimated 2,000 suspected or identified guerrillas<\/a> (as well as untold numbers of civilians) died.\u00a0 The populace of a key American ally grew ever more hostile and no one knows how many new militants in search of revenge the drone strikes may have created<\/a>, though the numbers are believed to be significant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite a decade of technological, tactical, and strategic refinements and improvements, Air Force and allied CIA personnel watching computer monitors in distant locations have continually<\/a> failed to discriminate between armed combatants and innocent civilians and, as a result, the judge-jury-executioner drone assassination program is widely considered to have run afoul of international law.<\/p>\n

In addition, drone warfare seems to be creating a sinister system of embedded economic incentives that may lead to increasing casualty figures on the ground.\u00a0 \u201cIn some targeting programs, staffers have review quotas — that is, they must review a certain number of possible targets per given length of time,\u201d The Atlantic<\/em>\u2019s Joshua Foust recently wrote<\/a> of the private contractors involved in the process.\u00a0 \u201cBecause they are contractors,\u201d he explains, \u201ctheir continued employment depends on their ability to satisfy the stated performance metrics. So they have a financial incentive to make life-or-death decisions about possible kill targets just to stay employed. This should be an intolerable situation, but because the system lacks transparency or outside review it is almost impossible to monitor or alter.\u201d<\/p>\n

As flight hours rise year by year, these stark drawbacks are compounded by a series of technical glitches and vulnerabilities that are ever more regularly coming to light.\u00a0 These include: Iraqi insurgents hacking drone video feeds, a virulent computer virus infecting the Air Force\u2019s unmanned fleet, large percentages of drone pilots suffering<\/a> from “high operational stress,” a friendly fire<\/a> incident in which drone operators killed two U.S. military personnel, increasing numbers of crashes, and the possibility of an Iranian drone-hijacking<\/a>, as well as those more than 70 catastrophic mishaps detailed in Air Force accident investigation documents.<\/p>\n

Over the last decade, a more-is-better mentality has led to increased numbers<\/a> of drones, drone bases<\/a>, drone pilots, and drone victims, but not much else.\u00a0 Drones may be effective in terms of generating body counts, but they appear to be even more successful in generating animosity and creating enemies.<\/p>\n

The Air Force\u2019s accident reports are replete with evidence of the flaws inherent in drone technology, and there can be little doubt that, in the future, ever more will come to light.\u00a0 A decade\u2019s worth of futility<\/a> suggests that drone warfare itself may already be crashing and burning, yet it seems destined that the skies will fill with drones and that the future will bring more of the same.<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com.\u00a0 An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the <\/em>Los Angeles Times, the Nation<\/a>, and <\/em>regularly<\/em><\/a> at <\/em>TomDispatch<\/em><\/a>. This article is the fifth in his <\/em>new series<\/em><\/a> on the changing face of American empire, which is being underwritten by Lannan Foundation<\/a>.\u00a0 You can follow him on Twitter <\/em>@NickTurse<\/em><\/a>, on <\/em>Tumblr<\/em><\/a>, and on <\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>. (To listen to Timothy MacBain\u2019s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Turse discusses why drone warfare is anything but failure-proof, click\u00a0here<\/a>, or download it to your iPod\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2012 Nick Turse<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 tomdispatch.cocm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drones may be effective in terms of generating body counts, but they appear to be even more successful in generating animosity and creating enemies. A decade\u2019s worth of futility suggests that drone warfare itself may already be crashing and burning, yet it seems destined that the skies will fill with drones and that the future will bring more of the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}