L-Ne · Historical Source Library

News Source Record

# News Source Record

**L-Ne / Open-source news extract** — Original media coverage of unmanned aerial systems.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Collection date | 4 December 2011 |
| Platform | Quiet Systems |
| Data label | Open-source news record // LRRK collection product |
| Handling | Public-source material. Image rights require separate verification before publication. |
| Scale | Global |
| Language | English |
| Terms matched | unmanned; drone; UAV; unmanned aerial vehicle; RQ170; RQ-170 Sentinel |

## Bibliographic

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Outlet | BBC News |
| Title | Iranians claim to down US drone |
| Dateline | — |
| First publisher | yes |
| Original URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16024605 |
| Archive URL | — |
| Dedup key | 2011-12-04|bbc-news|iran-rq170-isaf-statement |
| Source grade | A1 |

## Record

**Verified extract — [Fact — A1]** BBC reported Iranian military sources saying armed forces had shot down an unmanned US spy plane that violated eastern borders, identified as type RQ170, with minimal damage, now in armed-forces hands. ISAF said: "The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status." A US official told Reuters Washington had no indication the drone had actually been shot down. Iran said the military response "will not be limited to Iran's borders any more," per a source to al-Alam. Jonathan Marcus wrote that the RQ-170 Sentinel is a stealthy flying-wing similar in profile to the B-2, first spotted at Kandahar in 2007, and was used to provide real-time intelligence over bin Laden's Abbottabad compound. Iran had said in July it shot down a drone over Qom near Fordow, and in January two "Western spy drones" in the Gulf without evidence.

**Kinematic object.** RQ-170 Sentinel stealth UAV; ISAF lost-link over western Afghanistan.

**Coverage frame.** military / incident

## Source integrity

- Why this is treated as an original: BBC English first-day page with full ISAF statement and Marcus technical note.
- Wire reprint status: Reuters used only for the US official "not shot down" line.
- What was excluded: AJ and BBC Persian same-day pages (separate outlets).

## LRRK relevance

Watch / Campaign / Kestrel. A Watch desk would have filed ISAF's lost-control statement against Iran's shoot-down claim and the B-2-like stealth description.

*LRRK — security assurance for systems that sense, move, and act.*

L-Ne