An American unmanned surveillance aircraft crashed in south-western Pakistan on Thursday evening, near a paramilitary base close to the Afghan border.
“It was an American surveillance unmanned aircraft. It crashed on this side of the border,” a security official in the area told AFP. He said that it had come down — apparently due to a technical fault — 300 meters inside Pakistani territory in Chaman town in insurgency-hit Baluchistan province, but had caused no damage. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the wreckage of the aircraft had been recovered.
An official from Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps in Quetta, the province’s main town, confirmed the incident. “Some spare parts and a camera were also found with it,” that official said. “It crashed near a Frontier Corps fort in Chaman but caused no damage.”
The Pakistani army said it was investigating but did not make the results of that probe public.
In September 2008 tribesmen in the country’s South Waziristan tribal district claimed to have shot down a US surveillance drone in Jalal village near the Afghan border.
Sources: AFP, The Pakistan Tribune