US suspends Seychelles drone flights after crashes

Victoria: The United States has suspended drone flights over the Seychelles while it investigates a second crash in four months on the archipelago, which Washington uses as a launch base for the unmanned spy planes. One of the remotely piloted MQ-9 Reaper aircraft crash-landed last week at the main airport on the island of Mahe shortly after taking off on an unspecified mission.[caption id=“attachment_271306” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft, maintained by the 62nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, is ready for take off at Kandahar Air Field. Reuters”]  [/caption] The planes have carried out missions over Somalia and the Horn of Africa from the Seychelles, according to a classified US diplomatic cable dated 2009. Local officials say drones based in the archipelago also track pirates in regional waters. “(The US authorities) gave us the assurance that they will not make any new (drone) flights until the investigation into the accidents is done,” Seychellois Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Paul Adam said on Monday after a meeting with the US Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus. Mabus told reporters thorough and transparent investigations would be carried out whenever such accidents occurred. Reuters