The latest annual fleet airworthiness review, obtained by The Canadian Press under the access-to-information law show that crashes by unmanned aircraft are increasing the number of accident investigations undertaken by the military’s flight-safety branch.
“The overall (Canadian Forces) air accident rate — less Cadets and UAS — has increased compared to 2009 and remains higher than the 10-year mean,” said a July 7, 2011, briefing note for Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
Between 2007 and 2010, there were 10 crashes of unmanned aircraft, according to the airworthiness survey, dated June 10, 2011. Most the accidents involved engine failures and the majority of them happened in Kandahar during the war. Since the Canadian military started using UAS in the early 2000’s, there have been 42 accidents. Unlike crashes of manned planes, the Air Force has rarely acknowledged in public when one of their UAS is lost. Unmanned aircraft do not make up the majority of accidents, but their increasing use has underlined an inevitability.
“There are going be to crashes — it’s a given,” said Keven Gambold of the firm Unmanned Experts, a former fighter-bomber pilot and UAS operator with the Royal Air Force. Throughout the latter half of the Afghan war, Canadian operators flew CU-170 Herons, leased from MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. and used them for battlefield surveillance.
The Israeli-made Herons replaced CU-161 Sperwers, a catapult-launched aircraft the military adopted in the early 2000s, which were responsible for the majority of the accidents.
Captain Claire Maxwell, an accident investigator with the military flight safety, said UAS crashes are a rare occurrence and the air force has learned lessons from each one.
“We’re much better educated on how to receive UAS and we’re prepared to implement a programme,” she said. Maxwell said the air force rigorously monitors safety once a UAS is under their control, but the concern of observers is the testing that goes on before it reaches the flight line.
Source: Ottawa Citizen