An unmanned drone aircraft crashed alongside a Florida highway Wednesday morning, after launching from Tyndall Air Force Base. Eyewitnesses who saw the explosion say the drone exploded during take-off, and left a trail of smoke along U.S. Route 98 as seen above. More unsettling is the fact that this is the second drone from Tyndall Air Force Base to crash within the last seven days.
Since the aircraft was a drone, no one was onboard. No one was hurt in the crash. But the drone crashed alongside a highway with heavy traffic, and this represents the second crash of a QF-4 drone since a drone from Tyndall AFB crashed over the Gulf of Mexico this past Wednesday.
WJHG NBC has the story and some video from the drone crash in Northern Florida Wednesday morning. U.S. Route 98 remains closed, and will for another 24 hours -- because of the possibility of further explosions.
Both drones that crashed in the last week are QF-4 drones, which were not originally built to be drones. They're kind of older jets, and they haven't been used for fighting or bombing since the 1970s, when they were known simply as F-4s. The Air Force began converting these old F-4s into QF-4 drones in the late 1990s.
Air Force personnel cannot begin clearing the wreckage until tomorrow, because the drone was equipped with a self-destruct charge -- that is, an explosive mechanism that is supposed to blow up the plane should it ever leave its prescribed path. Though the plane crashed, that explosive device has not gone off yet, and could anytime within 24 hours of the crash.
"The status of this [explosive] device is unknown however, it is powered by a short-life battery which will be fully depleted in 24 hours," Tyndall Air Force Base said in a statement.
People like me who are not in the Air Force have to be wondering -- why are we flying drones on U.S. soil? Aren't drones just for shooting things in Afghanistan or blasting guys from Al-Qaeda?
The drones being used at Tyndall AFB are reportedly being used as targets to evaluate air-to-air missile systems. Obviously, the U.S. military has good reasons to not go into deep detail about these operations. But the drones are apparently being used pretty much for target practice (though the Air Force does not intend for them to crash or be destroyed).
There is also the inconvenient fact that drones are being used in the U.S. for surveillance purposes.
Drones are also being used increasingly by police and fire departments, and the FAA has approved commercial drones that will start flying in 2015.
Most commercial and domestic drones are not giant airplanes. They're smaller devices that can be flown unmanned for photography or surveillance. Though the skies will fill with more drones in the future, most of us will never know they're there -- that is, until they crash into something.
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