[Scan-DC] Lost Navy UAV enters Washington airspace (earlier this m onth)

[Blair Thompson]

There's more:

Errant drone near DC almost met by fighter jets 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DRONES_HOMELAND_DEFENSE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Sep 10, 9:22 AM EDT
By LOLITA C. BALDOR 
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military almost launched fighter jets and discussed a possible shoot-down when an errant Navy drone briefly veered into restricted airspace near the nation's capital last month, a senior military official said Thursday.
....

Navy Adm. James Winnefeld Jr., head of Northern Command, said Thursday that the August mishap could hamper the Pentagon's push to have the Federal Aviation Administration ease procedures for drone use by the military in domestic skies.
....

Winnefeld said he was in the operations center watching when controllers lost the link to their Navy MQ-8B Fire Scout during a test at the naval air station at Patuxent River, Md., and it flew into the capital region's restricted airspace.

"Do you let it fly over the national capital region? Let it run out of gas and hopefully crash in a farmer's field? Or do you take action and shoot it down?" said Winnefeld. "You don't want to shoot it down over a populated area if you can avoid it. We were going through all of that calculus."

As the fighter jets were about to be launched, he said, the Navy was able to reprogram the helicopter-like craft and bring it back.

© 2010 The Associated Press.

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Blair Thompson b_thom at juno.com 
Thu Aug 26 09:14:21 EDT 2010 

Did anyone hear any radio traffic about this?
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http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/08/navy-uav-enters-dc-082510/

Lost Navy UAV enters Washington airspace

By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Aug 26, 2010 8:11:58 EDT
   
Navy operators lost control of an unmanned aircraft earlier this month and were unable to regain control before the aircraft entered restricted airspace around the U.S. capital.

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