An MQ-1B Predator aircraft went down during a combat support mission last October after a lightning strike, the Air Force said in an accident report released Nov. 3.
The Predator crashed Oct. 17, 2015, in the U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility, which covers 20 nations in the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, from Egypt to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kazakhstan, the report said. It did not specify where exactly the remotely piloted aircraft crashed. It was deployed from the 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
The aircraft and its weaponry were destroyed when it hit the ground, costing $5.2 million, but there were no injuries or damage to other government or private property, said Lt. Col. Daniel Johnsen, president of the abbreviated accident investigation board, in the report.
The report stated that the Predator's pilot misidentified a layer of clouds ahead as haze. The pilot, who was operating the RPA from the 20th Attack Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, then did not notice other warning signs of rapidly changing weather, such as increasing cloud cover, precipitation and lightning, and continued flying toward it.
Shortly before 3 a.m., the Predator hit turbulence and downdrafts, and quickly lost and recovered 200 feet of altitude before lightning struck either the aircraft or passed very close to the aircraft. The lightning produced high voltage through the wiring in the RPA's wings, which damaged both wings' electronic flight control modules and left them inoperable. Without those modules, the aircraft couldn't maintain controlled flight and crashed.
Predator crews are supposed to limit the aircraft's exposure to turbulence as much as possible, and are not supposed to fly within 25 nautical miles of known thunderstorm activity. Although the report says there is no evidence that the pilot intentionally flew it too close to a thunderstorm, the pilot's misidentification of adverse weather substantially contributed to the crash.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
