Investigators have concluded that pilot error caused an MQ-9A Reaper unmanned aircraft to crash during a training mission in Nevada 11 months ago, the U.S. Air Force announced May 11.
Although the Reaper successfully reached its cruising altitude, the aircraft stalled because the pilot did not give it enough power, according to the service’s Air Combat Command. The pilot did not respond quickly enough to fix the problem, investigators found.
“The pilot was primarily focused on checklist procedures and did not initially observe the stall warnings,” the command said in a statement. “Despite later power increases in an attempt to recover the aircraft, the pilot was unsuccessful.”
The $11.1-million aircraft was destroyed in the crash, which occurred June 7, 2016, at the Nevada Test and Training Range. The MQ-9A was built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. and assigned to the 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
The announcement of the investigation results came less than a month after the Air Force said that pilot error caused a Reaper to crash in Afghanistan in February 2016 (Defense Daily, April 13). In total, five Reapers were destroyed in fiscal year 2016, compared to eight in FY 2015 and four in FY 2014, Air Force Safety Center records show.