Washington Times. Drone Pilot error costs US taxpayers $10m for crash
Всемирная прессаThe US Air Force is reporting that it was mostly the pilot’s fault for wrecking an unmanned drone in December in the Arizona desert. That mishap cost taxpayers nearly $10 million, The Associated Press reports. No one was injured, but the drone itself and on-board artillery was estimated at $9.6 million.
It’s not clear if the pilot, or anyone, had been disciplined for the Dec. 5 accident. Nellis Air Force Base spokespeople told AP that the drone — an MQ-9 Reaper — was being flown as part of the Air Force’s weapons school combat training program.
In 2000, the Pentagon had less than 50 drones. Ten years later, that number is 7,500–an increase of 15,000 percent. In 2003, the U.S. Air Force was flying a handful of round-the-clock drone patrols every day. By 2010, that number had reached 40.
“By 2011, the Air Force was training more remote pilots than fighter and bomber pilots combined,” explains Medea Benjamin in her book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control. Benjamin cites Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the Air Force, who said in 2011, “Our number one manning problem in the Air Force is manning our unmanned platform.”