An experimental Altius drone, weighing six tons, crashed onto a private house in Kazan. According to the developer, the cause of the crash was the disruption of its navigation system due to external electronic warfare measures. The incident led to a fire, but fortunately, there were no casualties.
The crash occurred approximately one kilometer from the airfield`s runway, shortly after takeoff. The Tatar Transport Prosecutor`s Office has launched an investigation into the circumstances of the incident.
The Altius drone is a heavy reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial vehicle project, under development since 2011 by order of the Ministry of Defense. Its flight tests began in 2016, and in 2018 the project was transferred to the Ural Civil Aviation Plant.
Dmitry Kornev, editor of «New Defense Order» magazine, commented on why this drone participated in flights only sporadically and did not demonstrate high effectiveness:
Editor of «New Defense Order» magazine
«It`s quite an ambitious project. `Altius` has indeed become a certain kind of long-term construction project. Since the early 2010s, there was one prototype, then three more prototypes were built and underwent testing. It`s very easy to track the history of `Altius` using satellite images of the Kazan production airfield. You can see these apparatuses appear on the field, then stay there for a long time without moving. Unfortunately, the project has been delayed, possibly because it turned out to be more expensive than expected. It`s a reconnaissance drone that can stay in the air for a long time at high altitude, providing reconnaissance. But you have to understand that if you use this kind of apparatus against an adversary that has air defense systems—that is, not in Syria, but against Ukraine, for example—then such apparatuses will be shot down. And shooting it down even at high altitude is quite simple with systems like Patriot or IRIS-T, certain models. And if an F-16 with AMRAAM missiles, even more so it can shoot down such an apparatus. Consequently, its use in the special military operation was limited. The apparatus probably participated in the initial stage, underwent trials—this is an assumption, but most likely that was the case. And generally, as of 2021 and slightly later, `Altius` was undergoing state tests. There were even media reports that state tests were completed, but we haven`t seen serial production since. The further fate of the project is still unclear. But we would like to have such reconnaissance drones, and even better, reconnaissance and strike drones that could use missiles or something else against detected targets. But for now, we seem to be moving quite slowly in this direction. And the needs of the special military operation lie a bit in a different plane: ordinary drones, FPV drones, tactical reconnaissance drones, and all means of destruction, which are still a greater priority than such beautiful, interesting, technically advanced projects that are less in demand in the tough combat operations happening in the SVO zone.»
The press service of Tatarstan previously clarified that the crash occurred on the territory of the «Dubki» gardening society, causing a fire that was quickly extinguished. According to preliminary data, there were no casualties.
