Drone strike interrupts Starkville bingo night; seniors vow revenge on Ayatollah

An unscheduled Hellfire release, a cancelled Tuesday, and a community center in Mississippi joins the long list of things that have happened to the MQ-9 program.

by garrett moll · filed huntsville

A General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper operating in support of a training exercise out of Columbus Air Force Base on Tuesday deployed an unscheduled munition. The munition, an AGM-114 Hellfire variant, impacted a community center in Starkville, Mississippi, at approximately 3:42 p.m. local time. No human injuries were reported. A scheduled bingo event, organized by the Starkville Senior Living Association, was cancelled.

The Air Force issued a statement on Wednesday describing the incident as "anomalous." The statement did not specify which component of the incident was anomalous.

The MQ-9 program has flown a combined total of more than 4.5 million flight hours since its introduction in 2007. Tuesday's deployment represents, by the Air Force's own count, the fourteenth unscheduled munition release in the program's history. Of those fourteen, nine have occurred in the last three years. The trend is being studied.

The community center, which sits on a quarter-acre lot on the north end of Starkville's Lincoln Avenue, was constructed in 1987 and had been undergoing what the Starkville Senior Living Association described, in a statement issued Tuesday evening, as "a lot of recent improvements, including the new chairs." The chairs were purchased in January. The chairs are, per the Association, "probably fine."

The Starkville Senior Living Association released a more substantive statement on Wednesday afternoon. The statement, which was read aloud by a resident named Doris Henning on local television, described the cancellation of the bingo event as "not the worst part, but close," and identified the Ayatollah of Iran as the responsible party. Ms. Henning, when asked by the reporter on scene why she believed the Ayatollah was responsible, said, "Because who else would do this to us."

The Ayatollah's office has not responded to requests for comment.

The Reaper that carried out Tuesday's flight was operating under the 147th Attack Squadron, which is stationed at Ellington Field in Houston but was flying the aircraft remotely from a ground control station at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. The pilot-operator and sensor-operator both declined, through an Air Force public affairs representative, to comment on the incident. The training exercise the flight was supporting involved, per the Air Force, "simulated munition release profiles over unpopulated terrain." The terrain between Creech and Starkville is approximately 1,600 miles of populated North American landmass.

The Air Force declined to specify how a simulated munition release profile resulted in a non-simulated munition release. The Air Force referred further questions to General Atomics. General Atomics referred further questions to the Air Force.

I have spent twelve years covering this program. I have written about the Reaper's targeting systems, its sensor packages, its cost-per-flight-hour, its export sales, and the seven acquisition reform efforts that have failed to reduce any of the above. I have interviewed pilots, sensor operators, program managers, and contractors. I have been to Creech. I have been to Holloman. I have been to the General Atomics facility in Poway.

Ms. Henning's theory is, I can say with some confidence, wrong.

That is the only thing I can say with confidence about what happened in Starkville on Tuesday.

The Starkville Senior Living Association has rescheduled the bingo event for the following Tuesday, at the First Methodist Church on West Main, which has offered its fellowship hall at no charge. Ms. Henning has indicated that the Association intends to pursue what she described as "vigorous follow-up" with the Department of Defense, and that the Association "will be watching the skies." She did not elaborate on what, specifically, the Association will be watching the skies for.

The Reaper's current cost-per-flight-hour, per the Air Force's most recent public accounting, is $3,624.

— G.M., filed Huntsville