Heron Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Return to Flight Status after Temporary suspension of flying

Australia’s Heron Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cles (UAV) have returned to flight after fly­ing of all Heron UAVs was tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed for 24 hours on 1 Novem­ber.

Con­trac­tor Mac­Don­ald Det­twiler and Asso­ciates (MDA), sus­pend­ed fly­ing its fleet of Heron air­craft world­wide tem­porar­i­ly as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure, pend­ing advice from the man­u­fac­tur­er, Israeli Aero­space Indus­tries (IAI), fol­low­ing a series of land­ing gear malfunctions. 

Flight sus­pen­sion of the Heron air­craft had min­i­mal impact on Aus­tralian oper­a­tions in Afghanistan. 

A pre­vi­ous inci­dent involv­ing a land­ing gear mal­func­tion caused minor dam­age to an Australian 

Heron air­craft on 28 Sep­tem­ber after the land­ing gear in the nose failed to deploy. 

Media con­tact: Defence Media Liai­son: 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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