MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, Calif. — As the U.S. military scrambles to get more robotic warplanes like the Predator drone aloft, it is confronting an unexpected adversary: human error.
An Air Force researcher has found that operator mistakes are responsible for a growing number of Predator mishaps in recent years, a period in which the drones have been flown by increasingly inexperienced crews.
“The Air Force has increased the sheer volume of pilots put through the training pipeline and shipped them off to war with the bare minimum training required,” researcher Lt. Col. Robert P. Herz said in an e-mail.
Herz investigated the Predator’s record earlier this year in a doctoral dissertation that has circulated among military planners and safety experts. Early in the Predator program, most crashes were blamed on equipment breakdowns, many of which have now been resolved. Herz found that 71 percent of Predator mishaps from 2003 to 2006 could be attributed to “human error factors.” Operator error periodically causes the drones to go down behind enemy lines, where fighters must then bomb them so prized technology does not fall into the wrong hands.
The Associated Press
