Deep Water Renders Salvage Uncertain

In an ill-advised move likely to move the Eastern and Western worlds nearer open conflict, Russia is hastening to secure the wreckage of a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone gone down in the Black Sea after a 14 March collision with a Russian Su-27 fighter jet.

Notwithstanding Moscow’s denial of responsibility for the incident, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, on Wednesday, 15 March, asserted before a Russian state television audience that Kremlin authorities were endeavoring to retrieve the drone’s wreckage.

U.S. National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby set forth that the U.S. military has already moved to "protect our equities" and that U.S. military commanders were aggressively pursuing means by which to preclude Russia’s "getting their hands on [the drone]."

Kirby continued: "Without getting to too much detail, what I can say is that we've taken steps to protect our equities with respect to that particular drone, that particular aircraft and its United States property. We obviously don't want to see anybody getting their hands on it beyond us."

Hours later, Kirby took a distinctly less optimistic tone, conceding: "It has not been recovered, and I'm not sure we're going to be able to recover it. I mean, where it fell into the Black Sea, very, very deep water. So we're still assessing whether there can be any kind of recovery effort mounted there. There may not be."

The MQ-9 went down in waters near Zmiinyi Island—a Ukrainian holding located in the northwestern Black Sea near the Danube Delta. The island plays an important role in the delineation of Ukrainian’s territorial waters.

Developed in the early 2000s by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems primarily for the United States Air Force, the MQ-9 is a dated platform. Specimens of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) have been lost over Afghanistan, Syria, and other countries predisposed to enmity with the U.S. and their wreckage likely recovered by enemy combatants. What, if any, military intelligence the downed MQ-9 drone might yield to Moscow remains unclear.  

The Pentagon has alleged it is working to declassify video of the 14 March collision. Signs exist, however, that the Biden administration is eager to downplay the incident.

Moscow’s tenor vis-à-vis the confrontation is decidedly less dismissive. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov remarked on Wednesday 15 March that relations between Moscow and Washington were “at their lowest point, in a very bad state.” Peskov refrained from discussing the drone incident, stating he had nothing to add regarding such.

On Tuesday, 14 March 2023, U.S. European Command reported that a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter jet had collided with an unarmed American MQ-9 Reaper UAV. The collision, which occurred in international airspace, catastrophically damaged the drone and occasioned its loss in the Black Sea.

The incident followed what the U.S. military called “an unsafe and unprofessional intercept” of a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper at 07:03 Central European Time. The United States routinely operates surveillance drones over the Black Sea, to include Surveillance, Intelligence, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions near Russian-occupied Crimea.

U.S. military sources stated a flight of two Russian Su-27s flew in front of and dumped fuel on the MQ-9 “several times” before one of the fighters—presumably inadvertently—struck the drone’s aft-facing propeller.

U.S. Air Force Europe-Air Forces Africa Commander General James B. Hecker set forth in a statement: “Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9. … In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.”

Whether or not the Su-27 was damaged in the incident remains unknown.

EUCOM added in a separate statement that the collision “demonstrates a lack of competence” on behalf of the Russians.

In February 2022, Russian Su-35 fighter jets crossed the flightpath of a U.S. Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, nearing to within five-feet of the 737-derivative ISR aircraft. Alluding to the antecedent instance in the wake of the MQ-9’s downing, EUCOM stated: “This incident follows a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with U.S. and Allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea.”

FMI: www.defense.gov