Drishti-10 UAV (Photo: India Sentinels)
New Delhi: An unmanned Drishti-10 aircraft operated by the Indian Navy crashed into the sea off Porbandar in Gujarat on Wednesday afternoon during a routine training sortie. It prompted the navy to order an investigation into the accident.
In a short statement, the navy said the aircraft had gone down soon after take-off from the coastal airfield. “Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle Drishti-10 crashed off Porbandar airfield during a training sortie this afternoon. No injury or loss of life has been reported on ground. The cause of the incident is being investigated,” it said.
The navy did not disclose whether the aircraft suffered a technical malfunction, lost its data link with the ground control station, or ran into some other operational problem before it went down. There were no reports of damage to civilian property or military infrastructure.
An inquiry has been ordered to establish the sequence of events. Investigators are expected to examine telemetry data, mission records, maintenance logs and inputs from the crew that was operating the aircraft to determine the cause.
The Drishti-10 is central to the navy’s efforts to keep watch over the Arabian Sea and the wider Indian Ocean region, where long-endurance unmanned aircraft have increasingly taken on tasks once reserved for manned maritime patrol planes.
The drones are used to monitor shipping lanes, coastal approaches and other strategic maritime zones on a near-continuous basis.
Assembled by Adani Defence & Aerospace under licence from Israel’s Elbit Systems, the Drishti-10 is the Indian variant of the Hermes 900, a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft designed for military and security roles.
It can stay airborne for more than 30 hours at altitudes of about 30,000 feet, and carries electro-optical and infrared sensors, a maritime surveillance payload, synthetic aperture radar and secure communication equipment, allowing it to carry out intelligence gathering, target surveillance, coastal monitoring, search-and-rescue support and disaster-response missions.
Thenavy inducted its first Drishti-10 in January 2024 under an emergency procurement route meant to strengthen surveillance along India's coastline and its exclusive economic zone. It has since operated from Porbandar, a naval aviation base on the Arabian Sea coast that anchors round-the-clock maritime reconnaissance for the western fleet.
Wednesday’s accident is the second reported mishap involving the Drishti-10 in under two years, a run of incidents that underlines the strains of inducting a new unmanned platform rapidly into frontline service.
The first Drishti-10, delivered to the navy in December 2024, crashed into the sea off Porbandar on January 14, 2025, while still undergoing pre-acceptance trials conducted by Adani Defence & Aerospace ahead of its formal induction.
Reports earlier this year indicated that the service plans to induct 10 more Drishti-10 units to strengthen round-the-clock surveillance of India’s maritime approaches, alongside two MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones leased from the American firm General Atomics and a separate government-to-government order for Predator drones with the United States.
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