IAF's UAV crashes in Kathua

Jammu: An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) of the Indian Air Force crashed near Ladoli village in Rajbagh area of Kathua district during the wee hours of Friday. The UAV had disappeared from the radar of the IAF around 2.30 am and its last location was noted to be Khanpur. However, no casualties or injuries have been reported in the incident.
After being informed by IAF authorities that its UAV has lost contact with radar in Kathua belt, a police team of Rajbagh police station, accompanied by Air Force personnel reached on the accident spot and seized the remains of UAV, which caught fire after the crash. "The police came to know about the crash in the morning when IAF officials came looking for the debris at Khanpur. From there, the joint teams moved to Ladoli village of Chadwal belt where Villagers told them that they had heard an explosion during night," Senior Superintendent of Police, Kathua, Mohamamd Suleman Choudhary informed while talking to media sources.
"No one was injured in the crash as debris of the UAV fell into the forest area," officials informed, adding the nearest residential area was over a km away from the crash site. While the reason behind the crash was not immediately known, the Indian Air Force has launched an inquiry into the crash.
It is pertinent to mention that an unmanned aerial vehicle, an aircraft without a human pilot aboard, is a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) which includes a UAV, a ground-based controller, and a system of communications between the two. Aimed at providing aerial targets for training and Air Defence, the flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy- either under remote control by a human operator or autonomously by onboard computers.
In past also, a UAV of the IAF had crashed in Odisha during a trial.