Unmanned Aerial Vehicle - Historical Events Involving UAVs

Historical Events Involving UAVs

• During the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi Army forces surrendered to the UAVs of the USS Wisconsin.
• In October 2002, a few days before the U.S. Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by UAV drones that could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack U.S. eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that they had been transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the U.S. It was later revealed that Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of only a few outdated Czech training drones. At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to whether CIA's conclusions about Iraqi UAVs were accurate. The U.S. Air Force,the agency most familiar with UAVs, denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.
• In December 2002, the first ever dogfight involving a UAV occurred when an Iraqi MiG-25 and a U.S. RQ-1 Predator fired missiles at each other. The MiG's missile destroyed the Predator.
• The U.S. deployed UAVs in Yemen to search for and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, firing at and failing to kill him at least once, before he was killed in a drone attack in Yemen on 30 September 2011. Two weeks later, Al-Awlaki's son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was also killed by an American drone strike in Yemen.
• In December 2011, Iran captured a United States' RQ-170 unmanned aerial vehicle which flew over Iran, and rejected President Barack Obama's request to return it to the US. Iranian officials have recovered data from the U.S. surveillance drone. However, it is not clear how Iran brought it down. There have also been reports that Iran spoofed the GPS signal used by the drone and tricked it into landing on an Iranian runway.