Russia may have recovered some parts of the American drone that went down in the Black Sea last week after being dogged by Russian fighter jets.
According to a report published Wednesday by The New York Times, hobbyists were able to pick up some of the radio chatter between Russian ships and aircraft in the area — and while some of what they heard was likely in code, they said that some pertained to the American MQ-9 Reaper drone.
Several audio recordings were made, pieced together over the course of several hours — beginning approximately eight hours after the drone went down — and the captured conversations indicated that a number of pieces of the drone had been recovered.
They were able to salvage part of the drone’s engine casing, nose, wing, and gas tank, the NYT reported. Additional details — some indicating the locations of ships involved in the intercepted conversations — confirmed that several of them were operating in the general area where the drone had disappeared.
Despite the audio interference and the use of a number of code words throughout the transmissions, it is not believed that the Russians have recovered any technology that would be considered “sensitive,” according to the report.
Shortly after the drone went down, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley said that it was unlikely anyone would be able to recover anything useful from the drone’s crash site.
“This is probably about four or five thousand feet of water and it probably, don’t know for certain yet, it will be days before we have actual facts on the impact and what debris is there,” Milley explained. “It probably sank to some significant depths. So, any recovery operation from a techno standpoint would be very difficult.”
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Milley said at the same press briefing that the United States was not prepared to treat the situation as an “act of war,” adding, “As far as an act of war goes, I’m not gonna — I’m not gonna go there. Incidents happen. And clearly we do not seek armed conflict with Russia and I believe at this point we should investigate this incident and move on from there.”