The Air Force believes an electrical issue, not enemy fire, caused its MQ-9 Reaper to crash in northern Syria on Tuesday, a spokesman told Air Force Magazine by email. Following the crash, ISIS-affiliated fighters posted video of the wreckage and claimed they shot down the remotely piloted aircraft, IHS Jane’s 360 reported. However, the service said the RPA was not brought down by enemy fire when announcing the mishap. The investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing, the spokesman said, but “there are no indications that Da?esh [another term for ISIS] had anything to do with this.”
The Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit hosted a change of command ceremony recently, another sign of how the CCA concept is maturing and becoming entrenched in the Air Force’s structure, to the point where exercises have generated multiple sorties in a single day to simulate high-tempo combat operations.