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Drone On Training Flight Makes Emergency Landing At Naval Base Ventura County

A MQ-4C Triton Unmanned Aircraft

A new unmanned intelligence gathering and surveillance aircraft on a test flight made a crash landing at Naval Base Ventura County.

An MQ-4C Triton was on a test flight Wednesday afternoon when it had a mechanical problem. As a precaution, the pilot shut down the engine, and tried to land the aircraft on a runway at Point Mugu. The craft’s landing gear wouldn’t deploy, so the pilot made a belly landing. No injuries were reported.

The cause of the problem which triggered the emergency landing is under investigation.

The Triton is a new high tech aircraft designed to fly up to 30 hours, at a height of 55,000 feet. It’s 47 feet long, with a 130 foot wingspan. With its advanced technology, it can survey 2.7 million miles of ocean during a 24 hour period.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral. 
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