By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 13 January 2015:
The Libyan army claims to have shot down an helicopter drone which was on a reconnaissance mission near the Zintani airbase at Al-Wattiya.
The Austrian-made Schiebel Camcopter S-100 may have been one of the four ordered by the Qaddafi regime, which were then placed under the operational control of the feared Khamis Brigade.
A working Schiebel camcopter S100 (Photo: Schiebel
Depending on the sophistication of its on-board spying equipment, a single Camcopter S-100 can cost around $2 million. It is able to fly for six hours at a maximum speed of 220 kph and operate as high as 5,500 metres.
Posted pictures of the crashed copter, which bore a white label saying in English and then Arabic “Coast Guard Administration”, showed no obvious signs of it being hit by ground fire. Despite the ground impact, the drone was not severely damaged, suggesting that it may have lost power and “fluttered” down.