Originally Posted by
bliddel
Survived? Not the story I heard. I was told in confidence, so I won't reveal my source, but yeah, totally fatal, military came in with cleanup team within minutes, hauled away all the evidence, paid off surviving family members for their silence, nothing to see here, move along. Very scary stuff.
Most likely pure BS. The military does not have "cleanup teams" at least not in CONUS. On occasions where there is a need, they will assemble an "investigative team" including appropriately experienced officers, technical experts, and usually lawyers. But they are not standing by in hangars full of black helicopters
Also rank-and-file military personal do NOT have the discretion to write large compensation checks. There is a process for that, and if you want big money you have to sue. Why settle up for $50K when you can sue for millions? The process is actually streamlined overseas because we need to rapidly appease locals in the event of an accident involving US military forces, but that doesn't apply to US citizens and also doesn't involve very large paypouts.
I can almost guarantee you that any fatal accident involving innocent civilians and military UAVs would be world headlines. Drones just have that news-worthiness about them.