Turkey's Bayraktar Akinci drone draws star, crescent after finding Iran president's helicopter

Iran’s president, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, passed away when the Bell 212 helicopter he was riding in crashed in the Jofa district of East Azerbaijan’s mountains. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, was also on board the downed helicopter.

A few minutes after takeoff, the helicopter crashed in the Jofa highlands after navigating through thick fog and severe weather. With assistance from neighboring governments like Turkey, Iraq, and Azerbaijan, a large search operation was initiated. The wreckage of the helicopter was apparently discovered by the Turkish Bayraktar Akinci drone near Iran’s border with Azerbaijan in the country’s north.

Early this morning, as the drone’s call sign, AKINCI01, passed over the crash site, it noticed heat signatures. The drone was last observed near Van, Turkey, after drawing a crescent on its flight path that was picked up by open-source flight monitoring websites. It was originally observed close to Makaou, Iran.

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According to Bayraktar, the company that makes Akinci, the drone can do tasks that a fighter jet can. Combat operations between aircraft and ground targets can be carried out using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). It can fly for 24 hours at a time and reaches 40,000 feet in the air. Its navigation system uses an internal sensor fusion so it doesn’t need GPS to work.

The Turkey-made Bayraktar TB2 drone is a medium-altitude tactical armed drone with a maximum ceiling of 25,000 feet and a 27-hour flight time. Additionally, the Bayraktar TB2 is the first aircraft of its kind to be shipped overseas.

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Along with 30 other nations, Qatar, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine run it. It features precise automatic takeoff and landing backed by internal sensor fusion, fully automated taxi and parking, support for semi-autonomous flight modes, and fully automatic navigation and route tracking.

The Bayraktar TB3 is an unmanned aerial vehicle system that is being developed in-house by Baykar. It has the ability to land and take off on aircraft carriers with short runways. The Bayraktar TB3, equipped with smart explosives under its wings, is capable of conducting assault operations in addition to espionage and reconnaissance duties.

In the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the Bayraktar TB2 drones were observed in Ukrainian armor. Early in the war, the Russians were said to have utilized TB2 extensively, but as the struggle dragged on, they turned their attention to countering drone threats, and the employment of TB2 gradually decreased.

The US-Russian relationship with Turkey is an odd one. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, hopes to simultaneously acquire the US F-35 fifth-generation stealth fighter jet and the Russian S-400 missile defense system.