Hundreds of US drones crashed since 2001 causing millions of dollars of damage
More than 400 large American drones have crashed since 2001, each accident causing from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in damage, according to the findings of new research by the Washington Post after examining more than 50,000 pages of federal and military records. ● Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, became a popular American weapon during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration plans to open up American airspace to commercial, police, and military drones. The government has argued the use of domestic drones is absolutely safe, but the recent data about drone crashes shows there are still significant problems to be solved. ● According to the Washington Post, UAVs have crashed into houses, farms, roads and, in one case, even an airborne Air Force plane. No one has died as a result of a drone accident yet, but on many occasions, disaster has only been avoided by chance. The US military divides drone accidents into two different categories: There have been 194 Class A incidents, each of which either destroyed the aerial vehicle or resulted in at least $2 million in damage. More than half of these accidents took place in warzones, in Afghanistan and Iraq, but nearly 25 percent were in the US. Class B accidents caused between $500,000 and $2 million of damage. There have been 224 such events in total.