Location: Shindand Airfield, Afghanistan
Coordinates: 33.39, 62.26
On Nov. 29, 2011, a CIA-controlled RQ-170 Sentinel drone flying out of the Shindad base crashed 140 miles inside Iran. (The United States began flying drones over Iran from Iraq as early as April 2004.) Although Iranian officials claimed to have downed the drone through electronic warfare, U.S. officials countered that the drone had suffered from a technical malfunction. Before the incident, the Sentinel had reportedly flown undetected over Iran for three years, making hundreds of sorties over dozens of suspected nuclear weapons sites up to 600 miles into the country. U.S. officials claim that Sentinel surveillance flights over Iran have continued despite the well-publicized crash.
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