It is about the crash of a Russian plane and an American drone into the Black Sea

Reuters

Alarms went off last Tuesday. Fighter SU-27 from Russian Air Force collided with an American drone over international waters in Black Seaaccording to the US armed forces, which condemned the “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuver of the two Russian planes.

The United States (US) European Command released images of what happened. The video shows the aircraft, apparently a Russian SU-27, approaching the back of a US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone. The fighter begins to dump fuel to lose weight, be lighter and lose altitude to hit the propellers of the US surveillance drone.

The image signal is lost at the moment of impact. When he recovers, the drone’s propellers appear to be damaged. The distributed video lasts just over half a minute of the event, which, according to the Pentagon, lasted between 30 and 40 minutes.

A drone that can be armed and designed for surveillance

The Reaper MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle is capable of combat, but is designed for extended surveillance duties. This is the device the United States says it had to shoot down on Tuesday over the Black Sea after it was hit by a Russian fighter jet, causing it to lose control.

The “Reaper MQ-9”, also known as the “Predator B”, looks like an airplane, can reach a maximum speed of 480 kilometers per hour, measures eleven meters and weighs about 2,200 kilograms, according to the United States Air website. Force.

It was designed by General Atomics and entered service in 2007, becoming one of the first combat-capable unmanned aerial vehicles that could also perform long-duration, high-altitude surveillance missions.

This model, which has been upgraded several times, currently has a flight capability of 30 hours when performing surveillance missions, although this time is reduced to 23 hours when loaded with weapons, which increases fuel consumption.

The “Reaper MQ-9” is designed to carry up to eight “AGM-114 Hellfire” air-to-surface missiles, designed to destroy tanks, planes and helicopters, the US Air Force announced details on its website. Depending on the mission it will perform, the drone can also contain a synthetic blend radar, which is particularly precise, and different types of cameras for video recording: from monochrome day cameras for color recording to short-wave infrared cameras.

These drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), i.e. they do not carry a crew but are controlled remotely by a pilot. In addition to the incident that took place in the Black Sea, the “Reaper MQ-9” has become famous in recent months for the war in Ukraine. The company General Atomics, the manufacturer of these devices, wanted to show solidarity with Ukraine and offered these drones for only one dollar, despite the fact that their production costs more than 56 million dollars, according to the publication. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).