U.S.: Drone on display in Iran crashed

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. officials believe the downed spy drone on display in Iran crashed and broke into several pieces, and the Iranians reassembled it to make it appear as though it landed intact.

Officials also believe the Iranians repainted the drone, perhaps to conceal damage done to the body of the plane. In an Iranian video, the drone appears to be white, whereas the actual one is charcoal gray, they said.

Iranian officials last week showed video footage of what they said was the downed drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel. They have variously claimed that they shot it down or remotely skyjacked it before landing the craft in one piece.

The stealth drone was developed for the Air Force, but was flying under the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency when its remote pilots lost control of it late last week, said several U.S. officials.

With one of the most-sophisticated U.S. spy planes now in Iranian hands, U.S. officials continue work to assess how much U.S. intelligence capability may have been compromised. Iran's ability to reassemble the drone and put it on display has prompted U.S. lawmakers to ask why the unmanned drone lacked a feature that caused it to self-destruct if it malfunctioned, a congressional official said.

U.S. officials said they believe the plane broke into three or more pieces when it crash-landed. The assessment is based on a comparison of the images on Iranian television with the Sentinel's design specifications and intelligence from other sources, The Wall Street Journal reported.