A locally developed uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) on Thursday evening crashed at a forest park in eastern Taiwan. No injuries have been reported.
The drone reportedly destroyed several trees and broke into pieces.
Firefighters rushed to the scene after receiving calls from eyewitnesses..
Photo courtesy of a reader via CNA
About 90 minutes later, the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology issued a statement saying that the UAV was its Teng Yun drone.
“The Teng Yun made a forced landing at Taitung Forest Park at 6:33pm due to a control system malfunction. It took off from Taitung’s Chihhang Air Base in the afternoon for routine training,” the statement said, adding that no one was hurt in the incident.
Institute personnel had cleaned up the crash site and would analyze the flight data collected to ascertain the reasons for the crash, the statement said.
The vehicle was a prototype of the Teng Yun drone, which was later dedicated only to test flights and personnel training, it said, adding that the incident would not affect the development of other large drones.
The Teng Yun is a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone first developed in 2015 by the institute, the Ministry of National Defense’s primary research and development center. An upgraded version of the drone made its public debut in 2019 and completed a rare long-distance test flight off Taitung over the Pacific a year later.
According to the institute, the new Teng Yun, similar to the US-made MQ-9 drone, is capable of automatic takeoff and landing, multi-vehicle control, ground network control and real-time video transmission.
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