Sky News Report: Thursday 21 January 2016
Freedom of Information documents show faults caused 20 Reaper drones to be destroyed or suffer severe damage in the last year.
The US Air Force’s flagship Reaper drone is plagued by a mysterious technical fault which causes the craft to fall out of the sky, a report says.
An investigation by the Washington Post found that the unmanned drone – which conducts surveillance and airstrikes against Islamic State – has been hit with a number of technical problems.
It said that electrical faults have caused 20 Reaper drones to be destroyed or to suffer at least $2m (£1.4m) in damage in the last year – the worst annual toll ever.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that investigations have traced the problem to a faulty starter-generator, but cannot work out why it keeps failing.
Since 2001, more than 400 large US military drones have crashed.
