US military releases video from Russian fighter jet crash with drone

U.S. European Command has released dramatic declassified video taken by the MQ-9 Reaper drone that shows the moment that a Russian Su-27 fighter jet collided with it earlier this week after attempting to spray the drone with jet fuel.

The video from Tuesday morning was taken from a camera on the drone’s underside and shows two different passes taken by the jets to spray the drone, the second one being the collision with the propeller at the rear of the drone, which is visible in the footage.

Communications were lost with the drone as the image can be seen pixelating into color bars.

EUCOM also confirmed that communications with the drone were down for a minute and that the released video was edited for time.

When the video feed resumed, one of the propeller blades is seen damaged from the collision with the Russian fighter.

Later Thursday, the U.S. Air Force released a map tracing the incident -- the location where the MQ-9 drone was intercepted by the Su-27 jets about 40-50 nautical miles from land; the location where the collision took place, 50-60 nautical miles from land; and where the drone crashed into the sea, 75-85 nautical miles from land.