RQ 170 Sentential capture incident in Iran

Most of you here on ATS probably know about the capture of one of the united states most advanced stealth UAVs captured by Iran in late 2011. Known as the RQ 170 incident . A surveillance mission conducted by the United States Air Force and the CIA goes honorably wrong when operators of the UAV loose control over an area around Iran.

People say It was shoot down by Iran, others say it was hijacked by a cyber warfare unit in Iran and another story says the whole thing was an elaborate hoax created by Iran to try to frighten the United States into thinking they have our secret stealth technology and unmanned aircraft technology. The RQ 170 that was on display in front of Iran news broadcasts looked like it could have been a replica of the RQ 170 they say they captured.

A mockup for the RQ 170 supposedly captured by Iran was displayed at a victory rally in Iran. But with computers and websites like Wikipedia and aviation weekly, Iran could have got the information they needed for the hoax theory through those sources. I'm not doubting Iran's capabilities, but I just want to get this story straight. So my question is; does Iran really have a captured RQ 170 Sentential?

Yes. that is the short answer.

The US even asked for the sensitive drone to be returned if I'm not mistaken. What we have essentially done is place our stealth program under the microscope of unfriendly nations. The spread of highly advanced stealth technology from this point forward can be attributed to this one folly.

reply to post by projectvxn


Yes, they most likely do. And it is outdated tech that is 30 years old. It's a throw away model made from scrap parts with no new tech involved. This has been covered extensively in previous threads.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


That may be. But the fact is we dont know what kind of surveillance equipment was on board. And many of the materials used even though, according to you, the tech is 'outdated', it is still highly classified.

reply to post by projectvxn


Yes, but the principles involved in this stealth technology are known by the major players anyways. It was never a question of IF these drones were captured, only when, and it was planned accordingly.

What mainly has me concerned about this incident is iran a country that isn't so fond of the U.S. could possibly develop a stealth bomber from the technology recovered from the UAV. After all, allot of the RQ 170's features and stealthy appearance was inspired by the B2 Spirit stealth bomber. IF Iran has the money, they could develop a stealth bomber of their own from the Sentinel to use against America if they really wanted to. Allot of countries would kill to get our level of stealth aircraft technology because countries like Iran are pretty behind in military aviation technology. I don't think Iran even has their own fighter jet. They probably get all their aircraft imported from non U.S. manufacturers.

Originally posted by paranormal78
What mainly has me concerned about this incident is iran a country that isn't so fond of the U.S. could possibly develop a stealth bomber from the technology recovered from the UAV. After all, allot of the RQ 170's features and stealthy appearance was inspired by the B2 Spirit stealth bomber. IF Iran has the money, they could develop a stealth bomber of their own from the Sentinel to use against America if they really wanted to. Allot of countries would kill to get our level of stealth aircraft technology because countries like Iran are pretty behind in military aviation technology. I don't think Iran even has their own fighter jet. They probably get all their aircraft imported from non U.S. manufacturers.

They could not finance such a project. The idea of Iran making use of this tech is somewhat out of the realm of reality. They may gain something, not much. The players we need to worry about already have this level of stealth technology anyway, so not a big loss there. The only possible loss was the onboard package used for surveillance, and how state of the art it was. Of all the things to be worried about, stealth tech is not it.

Not to mention we have UAV's far more advanced than this one is. The RQ-170 was flown over Iran knowing it could crash there. They don't care about the technology as much as people think. Hell maybe it was a gift to get Iran on the wrong track. We don't know. Unlike the "no-combat" F-22, the RQ-170 was expendable...

More than likely China or Russia intercepted its control link as it was being operated around the world.

They likely shared that data with Iran and they figured out how to intercept the communications link and take over control.

It's the only viable answer seeing how they were able to get the vehicle fully intact.

The Government Accounting Office did a report saying there was a possible weakness in our new tactic.....the new technology may not pan out as it was proposed on the drawing board.

I'm convinced it was allowed to be captured as a trojan horse, maybe with the flame malware onboard. A number of things about the mockup Iran showed everyone don't even come close to adding up to what we know about the RQ-170.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I kind of have the same feeling as you about this whole ordeal. Hell, I also think that its possible that Iran just shot the thing down the same way Serbia shot down an F-117 back in '98 or '99 or whenever.

What has me thinking now is why we haven't seen one of the American UAV's have a self destruct device on board. Some might but the self destruct could be classified in case someone does hack a UAV. But it does make sense to send a UAV to Iran intact only to plant a virus in their computer network to gain inelegance on their nuclear capabilities. Basically it is smelling more like a trap for Iran and the sentinel is taking its mission to the next level to gather intelligence.

Based on what i know about the sentential is the software inside it that countries like Iran, China or Russia would want is highly encrypted to make data collection next to impossible to gain information on how it works. Basically making most of the internal hardware (circuit boards, micro processors etc.) useless to a country on Iran's level of development. And The RQ-170 is not out of date! its one of Americas latest UAV designs in service. I'm sure that America has other advanced aircraft technology that we don't know about like the rumored TR-3B flying triangle and the hypersonic aurora spy plane with possible speeds of 11,800 MPH (also rumored)

Originally posted by paranormal78
What has me thinking now is why we haven't seen one of the American UAV's have a self destruct device on board. Some might but the self destruct could be classified in case someone does hack a UAV. But it does make sense to send a UAV to Iran intact only to plant a virus in their computer network to gain inelegance on their nuclear capabilities. Basically it is smelling more like a trap for Iran and the sentinel is taking its mission to the next level to gather intelligence.

Based on what i know about the sentential is the software inside it that countries like Iran, China or Russia would want is highly encrypted to make data collection next to impossible to gain information on how it works. Basically making most of the internal hardware (circuit boards, micro processors etc.) useless to a country on Iran's level of development. And The RQ-170 is not out of date! its one of Americas latest UAV designs in service. I'm sure that America has other advanced aircraft technology that we don't know about like the rumored TR-3B flying triangle and the hypersonic aurora spy plane with possible speeds of 11,800 MPH (also rumored)

I am sorry, the RQ-170 is extremely outdated. It is 30 year old tech. It's basically the value meal version.The onboard suite of software and surveillance tech would be the only up to date components. If you do any actual research you will reach the same conclusion.

Originally posted by paranormal78
What has me thinking now is why we haven't seen one of the American UAV's have a self destruct device on board. Some might but the self destruct could be classified in case someone does hack a UAV.

Actually...www.flightglobal.com...

Lockheed Martin has confirmed that its P-175 Polecat unmanned air vehicle crashed in December on the Nevada test range after the unintentional activation of its flight termination system.

Seems like the polecat had a "flight termination system" to prevent it from leaving the Nellis Test Range during testing so the technology is out there. Like others have said, I think it was a Trojan horse as well.

It seems to me that the US have either been fantastically stupid, or amazingly smart.

Let us assume that the UAV in question is a crap pile, which has been made of posh materials, and made a little more up to date. Now, when the design is broken down, and reproduced for testing by either Iran, or for that matter, any nation they might sell the information to, the CIA and NSA will be able to track the routes by which the information was smuggled, the places from which the raw materials for an Iranian or otherwise unfriendly copy of the UAV came, and the people they have involved in order to make this copy occur.

This will mean that any formerly unknown links might be exposed between Iran and other nations, and organisations which operate across the boundaries of nations. This will mean that the CIA and NSA have the capability to observe the quality of the copy at a later date, to assess the quality of the engineering, any changes that might have been made to the "original" design, and a whole host of other interesting and important factors.

The reality is that there could be some positive outcomes from this apparant balls up. Even IF this incident WAS a balls up, the scenario I have outlined could none the less be put into action, and yeild results. Since I am but a conspiracy buff, and all around failiure of a human being, one must assume that those much wiser and higher placed than myself must have had the same, or better thoughts on the matter, and have put them into action. One would bloody well hope so at any rate!

I believe the RQ-170 had some sort of mechanical problem, possibly a power plant failure and its flight software defaulted to maintaining controlled flight in a glide until it ran out of altitude and hit the ground hence its relatively intact appearance and apparent belly damage.

As others have mentioned, the RQ-170 was designed from the beginning as throwaway technology, its loss is no great intelligence coup (sans the possibility of its sensor pack being something sensitive)

Trojan horse I believe unlucky as Stuxnet already caught them with their pants down and Iran's engineers probably aren't stupid enough to not quarantine any code downloaded from the RQ-170.

Whatever the cause I guarantee that Iran didn't hack the data link.

Hmmm.

I see examples of what I call American Superiority Syndrome here.

Now, you know I love you guys but I have to point out that smart people don't only live in the USA.

"It was a gift"

"It was staged"

"They couldn't have hacked it"

"Its x years old tech that doesn't matter...."

Really? How....arrogant....

Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe they actually did bring it down? And if its so out of date and there's no point to it why did the US ask for it back?

I love you guys, but come on - your military are not gods. Please, don't believe your own hype.

Just for once it'd be nice to see a "yeah, we dropped the ball there" - don't fall into the trap that most 9/11 truthers do and assume you are so god like that bad things can't happen to anything from the USA.

reply to post by neformore


I have no doubt that Iran is capable of bringing one down. Especially with some of the things we've learned about the Predator, such as the images aren't even encrypted. I know that the Iranian military is quite capable.

That being said, there are a few things that just don't make sense with the images out of Tehran. The whole thing just stinks. I think that they brought it down, but that there was a trojan horse on it, just in case it was brought down in that area. It really wouldn't surprise me considering that not long after it was brought down, there were reports of the Flame malware showing up. Prior to the Sentinel loss, there are reports of a number of other UAVs being brought down in the Iran area, so I think someone saw an opportunity here, and went ahead with it.

Originally posted by neformore
Hmmm.

I see examples of what I call American Superiority Syndrome here.

Now, you know I love you guys but I have to point out that smart people don't only live in the USA.

"It was a gift"

"It was staged"

"They couldn't have hacked it"

"Its x years old tech that doesn't matter...."

Really? How....arrogant....

Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe they actually did bring it down? And if its so out of date and there's no point to it why did the US ask for it back?

I love you guys, but come on - your military are not gods. Please, don't believe your own hype.

Just for once it'd be nice to see a "yeah, we dropped the ball there" - don't fall into the trap that most 9/11 truthers do and assume you are so god like that bad things can't happen to anything from the USA.

I know a little bit about the flight control of the U.S. drone fleet.

The data link is directional and encrypted, the drones have inertial navigation as well as relying on GPS specifically to avoid spoofing or jamming.

If the drone gets conflicting information it defaults to its preprogrammed flight course and goes about its business.

I don't discount the ability of Iran's military engineers however the claim that they somehow hacked its guidance system or spoofed the GPS signal doesn't agree with what I know about how they operate.

Sometimes things break and airplanes crash, especially new designs produced in limited numbers.

I don't understand why it is such a big stretch to believe the RQ-170 suffered an in flight mechanical failure?

reply to post by Drunkenparrot


Agreed.

Knowing what I know about the newer UH60's and their advanced avionics suite(which make it essentially a drone), I believe it is far more likely that the drone that was captured by Iran suffered a mechanical failure.

Someone didn't use a torque wrench properly, or it was FOD, or it had a hydraulic leak somewhere.