Global Hawk Down
 

An RQ-4 crashed near Mt Whitney, while enroute to Beale from Edwards.
No ejection attempt was made, and no survivors are reported at the crash site.

Spy Plane on Routine Flight to Beale Air Force Base Crashes Near Mt. Whitney | FOX40

You guys were saying about automated planes?

Good. No blue car in a driveway, no one running around town trying to intercept a wife who is out grocery shopping and no squadron dude hunting around a playground trying to find a kid to send home. That sh1t sucks.

Did the Beale leadership have a roll call with the manned HAISR personnel to toast their fallen comrade?

No but they're doing a stand-down for RPA operators, and will make counseling available as needed :p

From the article:

"The RQ-4 has one of the best flight safety records and is considered one of the safest platforms in the Air Force Fleet."

Missing from the end of that statement: "...because anyone who says otherwise will be branded a heretic by the Church of UAVs in the Air Force."

The bigger question is how many of these things crash that we don't hear about because it's not so public?

The model airplane club is alive and well.

I believe in the first four years, they lost 12 out of 30.

Years ago, a friend of mine was a very high up the chain in the AOR (can't remember which country he was deployed to), but they lost one at night over the 'stan....and never did find the wreckage.

They (still!!) don't even know what country it crashed in. :eek:

They (RPAs) are a huge pain in the a$$ to other traffic in Afghanistan and other AORs. Too many near misses to count. Before pilot training all the propaganda Nazis were saying how every pilot will fly RPAs in their Air Force careers and how it is the "wave of the future," several years later most pilots I know in the AF will retire without ever having flown one. (FWIW they do an amazing job at specific mission sets and killing bad guys.)

Anyone who thinks autonomous airliners are on the horizon for anyone actually flying today is smoking some special type of dope.