Whoops: US Military Laser Strike Takes Down CBP Drone Near Mexican Border
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
The US military mistakenly shot down a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) drone near the Mexican border in a strike that reportedly used a laser-based anti-drone system. The CBP uses drones to track people crossing the border.
"Congressional aides told Reuters the Pentagon used the high-energy laser system to shoot down a Customs and Border Protection drone near the Mexican border, in an area that often has incursions from Mexican drones used by drug cartels," Reuters reported last night.
[...] "The Defense Department didn't realize the drone was being flown by CBP when it shot it down," and "had not first coordinated the use of the laser system with the US Federal Aviation Administration," Bloomberg wrote, citing anonymous sources.
The military hasn't been coordinating counter-drone measures with the FAA, and "CBP drone operators didn't inform the military's laser unit that it was launching," Bloomberg wrote, citing anonymous sources. Because the CBP didn't notify the Defense Department, the military viewed the aircraft as "an unknown drone," the Times wrote, citing an unnamed Pentagon official.
The latest incident came about two weeks after the FAA abruptly closed airspace over El Paso for a few hours, leading to flight cancellations. In the early February incident, CBP was the one that fired the laser. The CBP was "using the same technology on loan from the military to combat drug-smuggling" and "fired a high-energy laser at what they thought was a drone," but turned out to be a party balloon, the Times wrote.
"In both cases, the lasers were used without the FAA's approval, which many aviation safety experts maintain is a violation of the law," the Times wrote.
[...] The Pentagon, CBP, and FAA confirmed some details of the incident in a joint statement provided to Ars by the Pentagon today. The statement said the "engagement occurred when the Department of War employed counter-unmanned aircraft system authorities to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace. The engagement took place far away from populated areas and there were no commercial aircraft in the vicinity."
[...] The statement did not mention that the drone was a CBP drone, and the Pentagon declined to provide further details to Ars.
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