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A drone boat picked up two US Army pilots from waters near the Strait of Hormuz after their helicopter gunship went down, US military officials said in interviews with various broadcast news outlets. The incident apparently represents the first time the US military has used a drone for such a rescue mission at sea.
The two crew members from the US Army AH-64 Apache were “rescued by American forces” at 7:33 pm US Eastern Time after their helicopter went down off the coast of Oman on June 8, according to a US Central Command press release. That press release mentioned support from US Navy units including the US 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59, which is charged with integrating uncrewed aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles, alongside AI, into 5th Fleet maritime operations.
Anonymous US military officials told CBS News that the Apache air crew was rescued by an uncrewed surface drone operated by Task Force 59 from the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. The officials also described the incident as the first time the military had used a drone to rescue people from the water.
Similarly, an unnamed US official told ABC News that a drone with a “speed boat-like design” picked up the helicopter pilots from the water and brought them safely back to land.
The New York Times was first to report that the Apache helicopter went down and that the crew members had been rescued on June 8. But the paper cited an anonymous source “briefed on the incident” as saying “it was not immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down by Iranian fire, experienced mechanical failure, or encountered some other problem.”
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