A valuable drone that went missing from a southern Arizona base last week has been discovered more than 600 miles from where it disappeared.
The $1.5 million Shadow aircraft lost contact with its controller during a training mission at Fort Huachuca near Sierra Vista, Arizona. On Thursday, It was found stuck in a tree in the mountains west of Denver by a hiker.
Tanja Linton, spokeswoman for Fort Huachuca, said there are still many questions to answer.
“Well, it’s not typical. And we’ll definitely be investigating into what happened. Because of the aircraft to lose connectivity with the ground station in the first place,” she said. “And then, of course, we’ll be taking a look at how it got to Colorado.”
After a search failed to find the drone, the Army concluded it probably crashed and disintegrated in the area.
Officials say the 450-pound drone has a 20-foot wingspan and can fly for eight or nine hours.