An MQ-1 Predator crashed in southern Turkey early Wednesday morning, the Air Force said. The remotely piloted aircraft impacted in an unpopulated area around 1:40 a.m. local time on Feb. 3, according to the press release. Turkish state-run media said the aircraft crashed shortly after leaving Incirlik Air Base, the Associated Press reported. An investigation is underway to determine what caused the crash, but the initial assessment points to mechanical failure. No one was injured in the incident, and the US and Turkey have control of the crash site. The US has lost at least five Predators supporting Operation Inherent Resolve since March 2015. Officials said the last Predator crash, in January, was due to technical failure.
The Defense Innovation Unit is gearing up for the first flight of its commercially developed hypersonic testbed as soon as the end of February—part of a larger project to quickly increase the cadence of the Pentagon’s hypersonic flight testing and field advanced, high-speed systems and components at scale.
