American MQ-9 Reaper drone falls into sea off South Korea

One of America’s MQ-9 Reaper drones crashed into the sea off the Republic of Korea’s western coast, near the Kunsan Air Base, the Yonhap news agency reported. The cause of crash is not yet known….whether it was mechanical failure or manufacturing defect will now have to be ascertained from flight data.

Current operators of this drone are USA, UK, Italy, France, Poland, Spain Japan Taiwan and Saudi Arabia.

India signed a deal in October 2024 for 31 MQ-9B drones for its Navy, Army, and Air Force together with hellfire missiles etc. Indian Navy has been operating two MQ-9As taken on lease from General Atomics in 2020.

In Sep 2024, one of them carried out a controlled ditching at sea off Chennai after it encountered a technical failure while on a routine surveillance mission which could not be reset in flight.Now it needs to go deep into the technical details.

According to the report, the drone was on a routine mission when it went down at 4:35 a.m. local time (9:35 p.m. GMT) not far from Maldo-ri Island.

“No injuries or damage to public property are reported in relation to this incident and it is currently under investigation,” the US military said in a statement. Search efforts for the drone are underway, Yonhap said.

In late September, it was reported that the US military had for the first time established a reconnaissance unit of MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles in the Republic of Korea.

Prior to that, the drones were deployed in the south of the Korean Peninsula on a rotational basis. Its goal was to survey the territory of North Korea and monitor China’s activities in the Yellow Sea.

General Atomics is also eyeing a large sale to Saudi Arabia, with the deal to resume under the Trump administration, as reported in February 2025.