A charter boat that was fishing off the coast of the Florida Panhandle discovered a 10-foot military drone believed to be a clone of a notorious Iranian design.
Hot Spots Charters, which operates out of Pensacola, shared an image of the drone on its Facebook page alongside the rest of its haul.
“Great 6 hour day today with this crew! If anyone is looking for their drone, please call Hot Spots!,” Captain Daniel Arsenault wrote.
Later, the company followed up with a post saying, “The black suvs came and got their drone, all is good!”
The drone, which was missing its nose and rear propeller, was found near Eglin Air Force Base, where a spokesperson confirmed that an unspecified type of drone had gone missing during a test.
“I can confirm that we were doing a test and the test article went down,” the spokesperson told defense news site The War Zone.
Arsenault told CNN that he encountered the drone by chance while “riding along offshore and saw it floating.”
The drone appeared to be an FLM 136, a clone of the Iranian Shahed-136 that has figured prominently in the wars in Ukraine and Iran.
The Air Force announced that it had reverse-engineered the Iranian model into the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, drones.
The drones, which are produced by Spektreworks in Arizona, are 9.9 feet long with a wingspan of 8.2 feet, and weigh 70 pounds.
U.S. Central Command confirmed in early March that LUCAS drones were being used by American forces in President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, “delivering American-made retribution.”
Since the war began over six months ago—far beyond the “four to five weeks” Trump initially said the conflict would last—the Pentagon has confirmed that 18 service members have been killed in the Middle East.
However, The Washington Post reported Friday that there have been at least 22 fatalities, citing six Department of Defense insiders. This contradicts the 18 publicly reported by the Pentagon on its Defense Casualty Analysis System.
The White House referred the Daily Beast to the Defense Department when contacted about the story on Friday. The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.
