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DRDO Drone 'Rustom-2' Crashes During Trial Flight In Karnataka's Chitradurga

Rustom-2, an under-development unmanned areal vehicle (UAV) also known as a drone crashed during a test flight on Tuesday. According to reports, the UAV crashed in an agriculture field in Chitradurga district.

Soon, a large number of people gathered at the spot, they said. Chitradurga Superintendent of Police Arun K told PTI that the UAV crashed in the areca nut farm in the morning.

Karnataka: One TAPAS Experimental Unmanned Aerial Vehicle belonging to Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) crashed 17 km from Chitradurga test range, today. The UAV was airborne for one of its initial development flights and was undergoing a test when it crashed. pic.twitter.com/IhNJrBkFGu

— ANI (@ANI)

Videos of the broken UAV went viral on social media. According to state government officials, the testing of the aerial vehicle called 'Rustom-2' was in progress when the incident occurred.

The crash of the ‘Rustom-2’ drone created a scare in the village and a large number of people gathered at the accident spot. A video of the crash has been shared by several users on Twitter and has gone viral.

The medium altitude UAV manufactured by the DRDO for the army, navy and air force is expected to replace the Heron UAVs currently in service with the Indian armed forces.

BCCL/FILE

The UAV which was designed and developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bengaluru and aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd can be developed to carry out surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles for the armed forces with an endurance of 24 hours.

BCCL/FILE

It is also capable of carrying different combinations of payloads like synthetic aperture radar, electronic intelligence systems and situational awareness payloads.

The DRDO had first displayed Rustom 2 at Defexpo-2014 in New Delhi.

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