Our latest quarterly update has added a further 27 crashes/downings of large (NATO class II and III) UAVs to our drone crash database. This is undoubtedly the largest number we have added in one update and is due to the number of drones operated by Turkey and UAE on behalf of the two belligerents in the the Libyan ‘civil war’ that have been shot down. In the first 6 months of 2020, we have identified 40 large military drone crashes/downings compared to 28 for the whole of 2019 and 19 for 2018.
On average, 2-3 large drones have tumbled to earth per month over the past decade, but 14 drones crashed/were downed in Libya in April/May 2020. While it is always difficult to sift out details of crashes and downings amidst the hyperbole and propaganda, as always we have only included reports which can be verified with photos and video or come from reliable sources. It is likely that other crashes/downings have occurred but have not been verified. At the same time, a number of claimed downings proved false. It should be noted that although every drone crash has been claimed as a downing, images of some wreckage show drones to be virtually complete indicating that they were not necessarily hit by missiles. Read more