Tehran 6 February _The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has unveiled, for the first time, the wreckage of a highly-advanced American surveillance aircraft that the elite Iranian defense forces shot down last June for violating the Iranian airspace in the country’s south.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club(YJC)_Two videos displaying the wreckage were published by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on Thursday, several months after the drone was fished out of Iran’s territorial waters in the country’s Ra’as al-Shir area.
In a statement issued on June 20, 2019, the IRGC said its Air Force had brought down the US-made RQ-4A Global Hawk using its indigenously-manufactured Khordad-3 air defense system. The IRGC said the aircraft was targeted near the Kouh-e Mobarak region — which sits in the central district of Jask County in Hormozgan Province — after violating Iran’s skies.
According to the statement, the aircraft had flown from one of the American bases in the southern parts of the Persian Gulf region at 00:14 a.m. local time, with its identification transponders turned off in breach of all international aviation rules.
The drone was stealthily flying from the Strait of Hormuz towards Iran’s port city of Chabahar, and intruded into the national airspace while returning towards the west of the Strait, the statement said. While in Iranian skies, the aircraft began gathering intelligence and spying, it added.