NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy’s operational commanders are authorized fly the Fire Scout (MQ-8B) unmanned helicopter despite two recent incidents that are still under investigation, Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) program manager for multi-mission tactical unmanned systems said yesterday.
Capt. Patrick Smith told reporters on the sidelines of the Navy League’s Sea Air Space Exposition that commanders in Afghanistan and at sea can still launch
Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] Fire Scout to meet operational requirements but have been urged to avoid using the system on routine missions.
“If there is a need to protect property, life, anything like that the operational commander deems necessary, they can fly,” Smith said. “Routine missions are always recommended to wait until we’ve had a chance to go through the engineering investigations.”
An MQ-8B was lost in Afghanistan on April 6 and the cause of that is undetermined, Smith said. That took place days after a Fire Scout was unable to return to a frigate, the USS Simpson (FFG-56) off the west African coast on March 30, forcing the Navy to let it to crash in the water before later fishing it out. An inability of the Fire Scout to communicate with the ship via the UAV Common Automatic Recovery System (UCARS) was likely the source of the problem, Smith said.
“That air vehicle was healthy,” he said. “It was coming back aboard after conducting a maritime ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) mission and we were not able to recover it,” he said. It was not determined whether the link to the ship was based on the helicopter or the frigate, he said.
Smith said the Navy believes there was “no commonality” between the incidents in Afghanistan and aboard the USS Simpson, which was participating in maritime law enforcement operations to counter smuggling, piracy and terrorism.
Fire Scouts in Afghanistan have since continued flying to check their functionality, Smith said.