© RT
A 243-foot surveillance aerostat broke loose from its moorings in Abderdeen, Maryland on Wednesday afternoon and drifted for 160 miles (257 kilometers) before crashing in central Pennsylvania. The two-kilometer long broken tether that was still suspended from the blimp left a trail of destruction in its wake, starting fires and leaving thousands without power. Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to shadow the blimp.
The craft ultimately had to be grounded by shotgun blasts from state troopers in the Pennsylvania countryside. The army began to accept claims related to damages caused by the rogue aerostat on Friday, providing a phone number for affected parties.
The airship was one of two kept aloft by the $2.7 billion JLENS (Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor) program. JLENS has been criticized for having budget and performance problems over its nearly two-decade history. Now, thanks to greater scrutiny attracted by the blimp fiasco, lawmakers want to know whether the program is more trouble than its worth.
"This event raises questions about the value and reliability of JLENS," wrote Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), and Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), chairman and ranking member of the House oversight committee, respectively, in a joint letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. They asked for all Department of Defense and Department of Transportation documents relating to JLENS no later than November 12, to help them "understand whether JLENS is a worthwhile investment of taxpayer dollars."
There were also indications that the aerostat's emergency systems might have functioned improperly, according to documents obtained by the Baltimore Sun.
Military planners wrote in NORAD briefing documents last year that the blimp would deflate automatically if it lost power, reached a certain altitude, or was given a remote command.Once deflated, the blimp would be on the ground in a matter of four minutes, according to planners. However, that didn't happen, and now a NORAD spokesman said that part of the investigation into the failure of the craft will include the performance of the deflation system.
While no lives were lost in this embarrassing military mishap, the same can't be said about a surveillance blimp accident that occurred in Afghanistan.
On October 11, a British helicopter was coming into NATO headquarters in the Afghan capital of Kabul. A blimp similar to the one that unmoored in Maryland was docked there, and the incoming helicopter hit its tether, which wrapped itself around the aircraft's rotors. The helicopter crashed, killing two American service members, two British service members, and a French contractor, as well as five more people, according to The Intercept.
The problem of aircraft colliding with military blimps isn't unheard of in Afghanistan. In 2013, at least three army aerostats were lost due to helicopters striking their tethers during the course of a single year, according to Defense News. After those incidents, the military placed "flags and visible light and infrared strobes at regular intervals on the tethers to help improve visibility."
Afghanistan even had a runaway blimp fiasco of its own in 2011, according to a description by Defense News. A blimp became unmoored, "speeding through the sky, out of control, carried by the furious wind. Suddenly, an F-16 fighter jet roared close and then opened fire, mangling the blimp-like dirigible, like blasting a football with a round of buckshot. Gradually, the aerostat slumped to the ground."
The exact capabilities of surveillance aerostats aren't clear. The blimp that broke free in Maryland was created with the purpose of detecting long-range missile attacks near the nation's capital. Its capabilities are classified, but a military spokesperson said that there are no cameras on board, according to The Intercept.
Reader Comments
The United States thinks it can fight a nuclear war with Russia and win. I kid you not. I swear I am not making this up.
But the United States is still using the same blimp technology used for surveillance on the front lines in World War One - which started more than 100 years ago. A hundred years!! Can anyone tell us why?
Because, without a doubt, some Congressman's brother's father-in-law is the one who makes these blimps and sells them, for 15,000% profits, to the US Military.
And there you have the Achilles Heel, the soft underbelly, the fatal weakness, of the US Military-Industrial Complex. Russia builds weapons that work and are effective. The USA builds weapons that make a lot of money for a few people, whether they are effective or not.
And these hopeful idiots think they are the baddest bullies on the planet, because they spend so MUCH of other people's money - yours and mine, people, the fruits of our blood, sweat and tears working for some corporate asshole - filling the pockets of their relatives and friends to build the most expensive weapons their friends can dream up for our military to buy.
And for a tiny, nay, insignificant slice of that money-pie, the asswipes we elect to Capitol Hill are only too happy to spend our hard-earned cash buying useless junk from their campaign contributors.
Remember the invasion of Iraq? People in small towns all across America were holding bake sales to buy body armor and bulletproof vests for their sons in Iraq, because the Republicans and George Bush, having cut taxes for the richest 1% and built bridges to nowhere in Alaska and held photo-ops costing millions aboard aircraft carriers, had no money for those things. And our sons were putting sandbags on the floors of their un-armored Humvees to try and prevent their legs getting blown off by IED's in the roadways of Iraq. And the Pentagon, according to Donald Rumsfeld himself on September 10th, 2001, had "lost" 2.3 TRILLION dollars. Two thousand three hundred BILLION dollars.
Remember?
God help us, and God save America, because ain't nobody else can.
I heard one bragging (non/former) balloon controller comment - as it trundled across suburbia that it could recognize a face at x miles... but no cameras. Right? (WRONG!)
Its primary purpose is to spy on people, i.e., You, me, us.
R.C.
It's a surveillance blimp to monitor us ... we don't have Cruise missiles
Maybe the government will be stupid enough to try and charge the state troopers for shooting down their toy
...what do you need an outdated, high maintenance domestic eye-in-the-sky for when you've successfully programmed your sheep to love your camera-mic-GPS hand held implants?
(....it matters not that a small percentage of people refuse to buy into the electro-leash plan...it seems EVERY space i occupy, other than my home, is saturated with these devices...so even if you don't buy one your still in the soup....the "ears have walls" now, so release that big white piggy back into the wild...)
". . . whether JLENS is a worthwhile investment of taxpayer dollars."
If Congress starts using criteria like that to determine the appropriateness for all gov't programs, we'd cut federal budget expenditures down to a tiny fraction of what they currently are.
That would mean huge income losses for all of their political friends and cronies, massive reduction of the bloated gov't workforce, and lots of unemployed lobbyists, to say nothing of the cessation of all the perks and bribe money politicians and many bureaucrats receive from the gov't contractor parasites. Of course, that will never be allowed to happen, in spite of the political posturing.
Forgive me, I just couldn't resist this one...
"Up, Up And Away"
Wouldn't you like to ride in my military balloon?
Wouldn't you like to glide in my military balloon?
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can spy
Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon
...