An Adani Defence and Aerospace manufactured Drishti 10 Starliner drone crashed off the Porbandar coast in Gujarat during trials ahead of delivery to the Indian Navy, people aware of the matter told Hindustan Times on Tuesday, January 14.
The same type of drone which was inducted into the Indian Navy is already serving. The medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) drone had been ordered by the navy to boost its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. The crashed Drishti drone was operated by the manufacturer and cost around Rs 145 crore.
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According to the HT report, the drone was manufactured at the Hyderabad facility of Adani Defence and Aerospace with technology transfer from Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems. The drone is the first major defence platform to be delivered to the Indian military by Adani and a variant of Elbit Systems’ Hermes 900 Starliner drone.
Earlier, Indian Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar had unveiled the Drishti 10 Starliner drones manufactured by Adani Defence in Hyderabad. The firm then had said the drone is an advanced Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platform with 36 hours of endurance, 450 kgs payload capacity, the only all-weather military platform that can fly in both segregated and unsegregated airspace. The firm said the UAV will fly from Hyderabad to Porbandar to be inducted into the naval maritime operations.