IAF’s ‘Heron’ RPA crashes in Jaisalmer; Court of Inquiry initiated

The RPA met with an accident on Thursday, however, no damage to property or personnel has been reported, the IAF said.

The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) crashed in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer. The Israeli made `Heron’ Drone crashed during a routine training sortie. According to the Indian Air Force a Court of Inquiry (CoI) has been constituted to find out the cause of the accident.

The RPA met with an accident on Thursday, however, no damage to property or personnel has been reported, the IAF said.

The “remotely piloted aircraft”, is basically an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and is deployed by the IAF to carry out surveillance missions.

According to reports in the public domain, the RPA crashed in an open area in Dhani Jajiya village, which reportedly is approximately 30 kms from Jaisalmer district headquarters.

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Previous Crashes

The Israeli made Heron RPA has experienced a consistent ‘one loss per year’ crash pattern since 2013. Recently, the Indian Heron fleet, initially obtained in 2000 following recommendations from the Kargil review committee, has encountered a string of crashes, all within Indian territory. The crash frequency has remained steady at ‘one loss’ per year. These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are utilized by the Air Force, Army, and Navy. According to information in the public domain, one UAV costs approximately Rs 80 crore each.

The unusual crash pattern began in December 2013 when an Indian Navy Heron crashed near the INS Parundu base at Uchipuli. In November 2014, an Air Force Heron crashed near Bhuj in the Kutch district. In January 2015, another Air Force Heron crashed in the Barmer district, followed by a Naval Heron crash off the Kerala coast in March.

Engine failure was suspected as the cause of a Heron RPA crash in 2015 during a reconnaissance mission in Rajasthan. Earlier, in November 2014, a UAV-HERON crashed on the outskirts of a village near Bhuj in Gujarat’s Kutch district.

In 2017, an Indian Army Heron UAV, tasked with monitoring Chinese troop movements along the sensitive Sikkim border, was lost due to a technical issue that caused it to lose contact with ground control. This UAV carried sensitive Israeli-origin technologies for gathering optical data in all weather, sensors to detect troops and vehicles, and airborne radars to track distant movements.

While regularly deployed along the Pakistani and Chinese borders, this marked the first instance of India losing a Heron in a cross-border crash.