Interesting: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer
Interesting report in the Christian Science Monitor by Scott Peterson and Payam Faramarzi:
Iran guided the CIA’s “lost” stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone’s systems inside Iran.
Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.
Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.
“The GPS navigation is the weakest point,” the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran’s “electronic ambush” of the highly classified US drone. “By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.”The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone . . .
Of course, since the drone was in Iranian airspace, they were perfectly within their rights to bring it down. I don’t see how anyone could deny that, and I imagine the US would do the same if a hostile nation — Iran, for example — flew drones into US airspace.
Related stories:
- Backchannels: Obama taking heat for asking for US drone back? Pay little heed.
- DC Decoder: Could Iran copy the ‘beast’? US aircraft have been reverse-engineered before
- CIA cover blown in latest spy-versus-spy with Iran
- Opinion: Lieberman and Collins: Shipping industry must choose between Iran and the US
To easy…something is afoot, chances are it’s a disinformation campaign aimed at the Chinese, since the US knew Iran would be holding it up as a trophy selling for favors to the highest taker. All of these type aircraft have self destruct on the most sensitive data areas apart from the fact they could of blown it to sky high and to smithereens if they wanted to. Just a thought but I say…”not so fast…it was to easy …and not enough complaints from the USA”
Nick
15 December 2011 at 3:55 pm