Iran capture of US spy drone 'would be significant blow to military'

FNC says the Pentagon confirms it is their RQ-170.

And it wasn't shot down. It's in one piece.

I've seen several images now - and it looks like it might have been hit with shrapnel but I'm not sure.

From the Tehran Times...

China, Russia Want To Inspect Downed U.S. Drone

Quote:

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December 7, 2011

An informed source in the Iranian military has said that Russian and Chinese officials have asked for permission to inspect the U.S. spy drone that was recently downed by the Iranian Armed Forces, Nasimonline.ir reported on Wednesday.

On Sunday, an unidentified Iranian military source said that the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic had downed an advanced RQ-170 unmanned U.S. spy plane, which had violated the country’s airspace along the eastern border.

There are unconfirmed reports that Iran may put the drone on public display.

According to the Washington Post, the RQ-170 drone has been used by the CIA for highly sensitive missions into other nations’ airspace, including months of surveillance of the compound in Pakistan in which Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was allegedly hiding before he was killed in an attack by Special Operations forces on May 1, 2011.

On Monday, U.S. military officials said that they are concerned that Tehran may now have an opportunity to acquire information about the classified surveillance drone program, AP reported.

U.S. officials considered conducting a covert mission inside Iran to retrieve or destroy the stealth drone but ultimately concluded such a secret operation wasn’t worth the risk of provoking a more explosive clash with Tehran, a U.S. official said, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

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LMAO - didn't take long, did it?

The moment it goes on "Public Display" needs to be the moment it's blown to Hell in a fiery blast that vaporizes the city.

Again, I go back to what I asked earlier. Were they able to take control of this drone and land it? How else could that thing be in such good shape?

Iran shows intact drone, boasts of cyberattack

By Joshua Norman

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/201...rs_620x350.jpg
The alleged U.S drone brought down in Iran over the weekend, on Iranian state-run TV.

(Credit: FARS news agency)

Iranian state-run TV showed images of what appears to be a RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which the Islamic Republic claimed to have brought down by cyberattack in its airspace near the Afghanistan border over the weekend.

If it is the U.S. drone nicknamed "Beast of Kandahar," many of the worst fears of intelligence analysts could come true.

"Military experts are well aware how precious the technological information of this drone is," The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Forces Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh told state-run news agency FARS.

• U.S. drones have been spying on Iran for years
• Officials: Drone downed in Iran on CIA mission
• How powerful is U.S. drone in Iran's hands?
• Satellite images show damage to Iranian missile compound

The drone appears to be almost perfectly intact, giving Iran a great opportunity to explore its many cutting-edge and sensitive intelligence-gathering technologies. U.S. officials have said that particular drone's self-destruct function probably did not go off, because at the time of its downing, there was no contact with the drone.

The state-run news agency FARS writes:

"Among the United States' main concerns is that Iran could use an intact aircraft to examine the vulnerabilities in stealth technology and take countermeasures with its air defense systems. Another is that China or other US adversaries could help Iran extract data from the drone that would reveal its flight history, surveillance targets and other capabilities. The drone was programmed to destroy such data in the event of a malfunction, but it failed to do so. The blow has been so heavy that the US officials do not still want to accept that Iran brought down the plane by a cyberattack."

U.S. officials have said little about what exactly brought down the drone, initially only indicating that CIA officials - who had been running the drone at the time - had lost contact with it at some point during its flight.

Many in the U.S. said earlier it is unlikely that Iran would be able to recover any surveillance data from the aircraft, but that was before images of it being apparently largely intact surfaced online.

Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, told CBS News that the drone is "one of the most sophisticated surveillance assets the U.S. possesses."

Cirincione said access to its technology adding that if Iran - or Russia or China - were able to glean information from its systems, "It could seriously set back U.S. national security interests."

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/201..._1_244x183.jpg
The alleged U.S drone brought down in Iran over the weekend, on Iranian state-run TV.

(Credit: FARS news agency)

Gen. Hajizadeh told FARS that the Iranian military had been well aware of drone flights in their territory for some time, and claimed to have shot down several before. For its part, U.S. officials have admitted that drones have been spying on Iran for years, but there has been little to no information about drones being downed there previously.

As for this specific drone flight, Gen. Hajizadeh claimed Iran was aware of it before it happened.

"Recently, our collected intelligence and precise electronic monitoring revealed that this aircraft intended to infiltrate our country's airspace for spying missions," Gen. Hajizadeh said. "After it entered the Eastern parts of the country, this aircraft fell into the trap of our armed forces and was downed in Iran with minimum damage."

I am going to suggest you're correct. They were able to gain control of the plane's radio control system, which honestly doesn't seem all that difficult to me.

Unless they were encrypting the digital signals running the servos, then it's NOT that hard to grab control of an operational remote flying machine.

It could be done with the right radio signals, equipment to fly the plane and simply over riding the radio signals (by having a closer, stronger signal for example).

I would NOT think the AF would be so damned stupid as to use COTS equipment to fly the planes and the data would be encrypted.

On the other hand, I'm thinking that they wouldn't want critical crypto gear in a plane that might potentially be shot down and scavenged for information about our crypto capabilities so, perhaps there was NO data encryption of the signals.

If you're not familar with remote controlled aircraft (as in say model planes) you might want to look up some of that data. They use Phase shift keying and pulse width modulation, things like that on data control for servos

I think it is highly conceivable they were able to simply override the data signals and land the craft and capture it.

FNC is reporting now about it.

Guess what... Pentagon has confirmed this our plane.

They have confirmed they lost "contact" "due to a mechanical malfunction".

And it has been CONFIRMED that the Pentagon came up with three separate plans to retrieve or destroy the plane (worth 6 million US dollars) but President Obama NIXED ALL THE PLANS TO PREVENT A WAR WITH IRAN.

Ok....

great.

The President is a sissy.

I just gave up ANY hope this country will exist beyond 2020.

Probably we're done now, just waiting for someone to turn off the oven and stick a fork in us.

Why aren't these drones equipped with self destruct mechanisms that, for example, if they don't receive an encrypted code within x amount of time detonate?

Also, good thing we decided to kill the F-22.

Not like a stealth aircraft with a small strike package able to be called up at a moment's notice and stationed in the Middle East vicinity would be handy.

Would be much better if we had to spool up a big old B-2 from Diego Garcia or mainland US just to drop a couple small bombs on a downed UAV.