India’s Rustom-II Reconnaissance Drone Crashes During Flight Test

India’s locally-made Rustom-II medium-altitude long-endurance reconnaissance drone crashed Tuesday morning in Chitradurga district of Karnataka state, during flight tests.

"Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) being developed by DRDO on experimental flight trial in new configuration has crash landed in fields near ATR Chitradurga. Data is being analysed," Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said in a statement Tuesday.

Rustom 2 is part of the Rustom line of UAVs that includes Rustom-I, Rustom-H and Rustom-C. The INR 1,500-crore ($209 million) UAV project was initiated considering requirement of the Army, Navy and Air Force. 

Developed by state-owned DRDO , Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), the drone completed its first test flight with high power engine in February 2018. It was designed to carry different combination of payloads (350kg) including synthetic aperture radar, electronic intelligence systems and situational awareness systems. The UAV has an endurance of 24 hours and is similar to the American predator series of drones.