DENVER β An Army drone that disappeared on a training flight in southern Arizona has been found hundreds of miles away in Colorado, and the military is trying to figure out how it got there.
A hiker found the $1.5 million Shadow drone stuck in a tree Thursday in the mountains west of Evergreen, Colorado, officials at Fort Huachuca say. Officials couldn't immediately say where in Colorado it was found. It was missing a wing. A recovery effort is underway and officials continue to investigate how it lost connectivity.
Soldiers lost contact with the Shadow RQ-7Bv2 unmanned aircraft after it was launched from Hubbard Landing Zone on the fort's east range nine days earlier. A search failed to find it, and the Army concluded it probably crashed and disintegrated in the area.
Officials say the drone, which weighs 450 pounds and has a wingspan of 20 feet, is capable of flying for eight or nine hours.
Soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state had gone to the Arizona post to train with the aircraft.
