Most drone pilots are keen to identify their drones just in case they fly away and get lost. But that’s not a great idea for spycraft. Apparently though, some Hezbollah drone pilots didn’t read the espionage handbook all the way through: Check your drone’s memory card.
The Jerusalem Post reports the Israeli military brought the drone down last year, shortly after it flew into Israeli airspace. It’s believed it was trying to gather intelligence on Israeli troops near the Lebanese border. As you can see in the photo, the drone didn’t suffer much damage. So the military was anxious to see what pictures it captured.
What a surprise they got when they checked the memory card.
The military hasn’t released all the photos, but here’s what it SAYS is on the card.
- Images of the drone operators
- Images of their vehicles, including license plates
- Images of the pilots flying another drone shot down months ago
The drone became a very effective double agent.
Check your drone’s memory card
An Israeli security source told the Times of Israel that some of the footage even showed Hezbollah special forces training how to use drones, the first time Israel had ever seen such a thing. The Times reports Hezbollah sent 74 UAVs into Israeli airspace last year, a slight decrease from the year before.
Israel has an ambitious civilian drone program of its own, but also flies surveillance drones into Lebanon. Beirut complains about the drones invading its airspace, but Israel says it must track Hezbollah’s activities. Israel has thousands of surveillance drones, and interestingly many of them are off-the-shelf DJI models.
While Hezbollah has shot some down, the Israeli military insists there’s no risk of classified intelligence being revealed.
Probably because they know to remove the bloody memory card.
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