{"id":20286,"date":"2018-09-26T22:42:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T22:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/09\/26\/faulty-nav-data-caused-drone-to-enter-fatal-dive-break-apart\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:35:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:35:56","slug":"faulty-nav-data-caused-drone-to-enter-fatal-dive-break-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2018\/09\/26\/faulty-nav-data-caused-drone-to-enter-fatal-dive-break-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Faulty nav data caused drone to enter fatal dive, break apart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An RQ-4B Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft<\/a> broke apart and crashed in California last June<\/a> after its navigation system began producing faulty navigation data, causing it to nearly invert and dive at an excessive, unrecoverable speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An accident investigation board report released Wednesday by Air Combat Command said the Northrop Grumman contractor crew flying the RPA<\/a> turned off two of its four navigators after takeoff on June 21, 2017, which was standard procedure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, one of the two remaining active navigators started producing bad data less than an hour later, the report said. The Global Hawk didn\u2019t detect that the data was bad, and as a result, rolled to a nearly inverted position and started diving so fast that it broke up and crashed in an unpopulated area near Lone Pine, California, east of Fresno. There were no injuries, damage to private property, or significant hazards or wilderness impacts to Inyo National Forest, where some of the debris fell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press reported last year that the Inyo County Sheriff\u2019s Department said a small wildfire broke out due to the crash, but it was quickly put out.<\/p>\n\n\n\t