Military drone crash update: Ukraine war toll and and ‘hidden crashes’
Posted: 19th July 2022
Bayraktar TB2 reportedly shot down near Kursk, April 2022
Updated – see below
We’ve added details of another 21 crashes to our drone crash database for the first half of 2022 – although 14 of them occurred in the context of the on-going war in Ukraine, so many will have likely been shot down.
It’s important to be aware that we only include larger (Class II and Class III) drones in our database, typified by medium altitude/long endurance drones like the Reaper MQ-9 and Bayraktar TB2. There have been dozens of verified reports of smaller drones being shot down or crashing in that conflict but they are outside the scope of our study. However, it is extremely likely that other large drones have also crashed/been shot down in that conflict but have not been verified.
In addition, as we regularly try to explain, there are many crashes of large drones that simply aren’t made public and so don’t make it into our database. More on this below.