Iran Shows Off Downed U.S. Spy Drone on TV

By John Walcott - Dec 9, 2011 12:01 PM GMT+0700

The unmanned RQ-170 Sentinel is still highly classified, yet since one came down in Iran five days ago, it’s a lot less secret.

The Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) spy drone, which is designed to be virtually invisible to radar and carries advanced communications and surveillance gear, made a 2 1/2 minute television debut yesterday on Iran’s state-owned Press TV channel. U.S. intelligence officials are assessing the apparent loss of its highly classified technology.

The official Iranian Republic News Agency reported that the Foreign Ministry yesterday protested the “violation of Iran’s airspace by a U.S. spy drone on Dec. 4,” the day Iranian forces claimed to have shot down the aircraft, 140 miles inside the Iranian border from Afghanistan.

Several U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the drone program is classified, said the greatest concern is that access to the aircraft could give Russian or Chinese scientists insight into its flight controls, communications gear, video equipment and any self-destruct or return-to-base mechanisms.

In addition, they said, the remains of the RQ-170 could help a technologically sophisticated military or science establishment develop Infrared Surveillance and Targeting (IRST) technology that under some conditions are capable of detecting stealth aircraft such as drones and the new Lockheed Martin F- 35s.

Seems Real

The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment yesterday on whether the aircraft the Iranians displayed is real. A U.S. defense official, however, said the plane appears to be an actual RQ-170, though he said U.S. experts were still examining the video.

Two U.S. officials with knowledge of the RQ-170 program said that some details, including the seams on the drone’s fuselage, its access ports and its unusual air intake, appear to confirm that it’s genuine.

The aircraft shown on Iranian TV -- or at least its forward and upper surfaces -- appeared to be in good condition for a high-altitude plane that the Iranians initially said they had shot down.

The most frightening prospect raised by what appears to be a largely intact Sentinel is that the Iranians’ second claim about how they brought it down -- by hacking into its controls and landing it themselves -- might be true, said a U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the basis of anonymity because the RQ-170 is part of a Secret Compartmented Intelligence (SCI) program, a classification higher than Top Secret.

Hacking Claim

The official said the possibility that the Iranians or someone else hacked into the drone’s satellite communications is doubly alarming because it would mean that Iranian or other cyber-warfare officers were able to disable the Sentinel’s automatic self-destruct, holding pattern and return-to-base mechanisms. Those are intended to prevent the plane’s secret flight control, optical, radar, surveillance and communications technology from falling into the wrong hands if its controllers at Creech Lake Air Force Base or the Tonopah Test Range, both in Nevada, lose contact with it.

Nevertheless, the Obama administration didn’t seriously consider bombing the wreckage or sending special operations forces into Iran to destroy or retrieve it because either would be an act of war, the two officials said.

The officials said that, depending on the real condition of the wreckage, Chinese or Russian access to the drone is a much greater concern than a possible Iranian effort to reverse- engineer the RQ-170, which they said is unlikely given the drone’s special coatings and other materials.

Basic Stealth Technology

As for its stealthy shape, they said, an RQ-170 has been photographed, and basic stealth shape and skin technology is now some 35 years old.

The officials said that the loss of the RQ-170 is a warning about the limitations of drone technology and the dangers of relying too heavily on it.

First, they said, although the newest drones are being designed to operate autonomously, they still need to navigate by communicating with global positioning satellites, and those communications, the satellites and ground stations are vulnerable to jamming and spoofing, or deception, by sophisticated enemies.

In recent years, one of the officials said, computer hackers thought to be part of extensive Chinese or Russian cyber espionage efforts have attacked the computer networks of numerous defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin; broken into two satellite ground stations and planted keystroke logging software in some military computers.

Air Defense Systems

Second, even the most advanced drones aren’t immune to air defense systems, and advances in infrared detection and Doppler radar, the same kind used to detect tornadoes and other air turbulence, are likely to render them more vulnerable. Drones are called “low observable,” not “invisible,” for a reason, one of the officials said.

The RQ-170 was flying a reconnaissance mission inside Iranian airspace when its controllers lost contact with it, the two U.S. officials said.

The officials said that for three years the U.S. has been flying two types of unmanned surveillance missions over Iran and along the Afghanistan-Iran border from a 9,200-foot runway at a former Soviet airbase in Shindand in western Afghanistan’s Heart province. Publicly available satellite photographs don’t show the new runway, only an old one built by Soviet forces when they occupied Iran two decades ago.

Monitoring Construction

In addition to monitoring construction and other activity at suspected Iranian nuclear facilities from high altitudes, the officials said, the Central Intelligence Agency has been using drones to monitor cross-border traffic and Iranian support for insurgents.

The CIA, not the Air Force, flies the missions inside Iran so they are covert operations that the U.S. government can deny.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said it presented its protest to the Swiss ambassador to Tehran, Livia Leu Agosti, who represents U.S. interests in the country.

In a letter to UN leaders, Iran denounced “the provocative and covert operations” against Iran by the U.S. The “blatant and unprovoked” air violation “is tantamount to an act of hostility,” Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said in the letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, current president of the Security Council.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Walcott in Washington at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net