Military spy drones used for non-war purposes over the United States were\u00a0almost exclusively for disaster relief or during training for natural disasters, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I can tell you with 100% certainty that these exercises are of a Defense support-to-civil authorities nature. It’s (training for or responding to) a natural disaster of some kind, earthquake, flood, hurricane or\u00a0nuclear-reactor blowing up. Something like that,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Crosson, Pentagon spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military drones used for these purposes ranged from small, winged aircraft that can be launched by hand to large Predators and Reapers that otherwise fly combat missions in\u00a0Afghanistan,\u00a0North Africa and the Middle East.\u00a0 For flights\u00a0over the United States done to assist civil authorities, the aircraft are equipped only with cameras, typically to provide disaster damage assessments, Crosson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
A\u00a0Defense Department Inspector General report\u00a0made public recently found that while the Pentagon has deployed these drones over the U.S. for non-military missions over the past decade, the flights have been rare and done according to law. The report says there have been fewer than 20 missions between 2006 and 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The analysis describes a complicated process for civil authorities to request access to a military drone with permission necessary from the Defense Secretary in each case. The Pentagon\u00a0briefly describes on its\u00a0website\u00a0a portion of the drone\u00a0missions that have been flown through this procedure \u2014 nine since 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They included search and rescue missions in California last year, disaster response drone missions for fires in California in 2013 and flooding in South Carolina and in the Mississippi River Valley\u00a0last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\u00a0U.S. military’s Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles or UAV, the largest of the military drones, was used for search and rescue operations in California last year. The Defense Department agreed to allow the Predator drone\u00a0to be flown\u00a0last year during a disaster-relief training exercise\u00a0called\u00a0Patriot\u00a02015 in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About 1,500 National Guard troops from different states participated in the event.\u00a0The Predator flight for that exercise was conducted in North Dakota,\u00a0said Senior Master Sgt. David Lipp, a media spokesman for the\u00a0North Dakota Air National Guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I can tell you that we’re very, very aware of the public concern over the use of UAVs. And so we are very, very judicious and cautious about using those assets even in an exercise format,” said Wisconsin National Guard Maj.\u00a0Paul Rickert, a media spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military drones also have\u00a0been flown over the U.S. for homeland defense missions and for training by the service branches. The\u00a0New York Air National Guardhas a wing of Reaper drones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Military spy drones used for non-war purposes over the United States were almost exclusively for disaster relief or during training for natural disasters, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":80557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2653],"class_list":["post-73541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"SYRAO4RHYRGF7KJWJOBNZL2A7Y","arc_canonical_url":"\/2016\/03\/11\/pentagon-military-spy-drones-in-u-s-used-for-disaster-relief\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n