notes.husk.org/likes images.

The above photos are circulating on the internet, credited as photos of a downed drone in Somalia, released by al Shabab on their Twitter feed. Multiple news sources are reporting this crash, usually accompanied by a photo of a Predator or Reaper.

The third photo down shows a manufacturer marking: “Schiebel”. Schiebel is an Austrian defence contractor which makes, among other things, helicopter drones, not fixed-wing aircraft. That is what this is:

 

Schiebel officially lists  the United Arab Emirates and the French, German, Indian and Pakistani navies as customers or triallers for the Camcopter, but in 2009 announced a partnership with Boeing to sell to the US military. 

Politico is reporting an official statement from the Department of Defense that “During the course of a routine surveillance mission along the coast of Somalia on May 27, a military remotely piloted aircraft crashed in a remote area near the shoreline of Mogadishu.” Of course, it’s illustrated with a picture of a Predator.

The DoD refuses to identify the model of aircraft which was lost, but “military officials” claim it’s unlikely it was shot down, because it flies at such high altitudes. (Schiebel claims the aircraft has an operating ceiling of 18,000 feet.)

As with previous crashes, it’s unlikely we’ll know if this was a crash, or if al Shabab fighters shot the drone down, as they claim. The latter is unlikely, whatever model of drone, as they’re capable of operating well beyond the range of small arms fire. In May of last year, a Schiebel engineer was killed and two others injured when one of these UAVs crashed into its own control station in Korea.

What is perhaps more interesting in this incident is the way in which, despite plenty of visual evidence, the DoD and the media add to the perceived mystery surrounding drones, refusing to specify details or in the case of the media actively misleading the public, through omission or misdirection, as to the nature of the technology. The visual reality, and thus a more complete understanding of the technology and its impact, is constantly withheld, overstated, or confused.