Karnataka: DRDO’s UAV crash-lands in Chitradurga farmland

BENGALURU: Rustom-II, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), crashed in an agricultural land at Jodi Chikkanahalli in Chitradurga district early on Tuesday morning.
The incident took place around 7.30am when Rustom-II was being tested at the Challakere Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), an outdoor testing facility of DRDO. Additional superintendent of police of Chitradurga district Mahaning Nandagavi, who visited the areca nut plantation where the UAV fell, said: “We cordoned off the area.Later, officials from DRDO reached the spot and took over from us.”
DRDO in its official statement said: “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle being developed by DRDO on experimental flight trial in new configuration crash-landed in the fields near ATR Chitradurga. Data is being analysed.”
“It was not an inducted UAV but an experimental flight,” said a DRDO spokesperson from Delhi.
UAV Rustom-II was successfully tested for the first time at the same ATR in February 2018. According to the ministry of defence, Rustom-II, a male UAV, was designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) with HAL-BEL as the production partners. The UAV weighing two tonnes was the first research and development prototype and had undergone certification and qualification for the first flight from the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification and Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance.