Towed Target Damages House After Falling From Draken Falcon 20 During Emergency Landing

A Falcon 20 declared an emergency with a caught goal winch cable, which later indifferent and fell onto a home throughout touchdown.

The Falcon, registration G-FRAD, was flying beneath the callsign BROADWAY 21 within the regularly used military training areas off the southwestern UK coast on Mar. 26, 2025. At some stage through the flight, which concerned using a towed goal, the winch cable that permits the goal to be deployed and retracted in flight malfunctioned and have become caught in a deployed state.

Procedures for this eventuality exist, which normally contain an try and set off a mechanism to chop the cable and dump the whole meeting over the ocean or empty land. Sadly, on this event, these procedures did not rectify the issue and the crew had been compelled to hunt an emergency touchdown on the close by Cornwall Airport Newquay with the goal nonetheless in tow.

Whereas on the strategy path to Newquay’s runway 30, simply after 1600 UTC, the cable and goal lastly did dislodge and fall from the plane with out enter from the crew. A big a part of the goal itself fell right into a tree, whereas different components landed immediately on a home beneath in a small rural settlement named Tregaswith. Smashing by way of the home’s slate roof and into the property’s rest room, the particles prompted main harm to the partitions, tiling, and the bathroom.

A home close to Newquay was hit by particles from aircraft pic.twitter.com/dpmYC6cbZr

— BBC Cornwall (@BBCCornwall) March 27, 2025

Property proprietor Sue Rundle contacted a neighbor and her son to analyze what had prompted the harm, discovering a really heavy piece of what that they had recognized as lead amongst the rubble. Devon & Cornwall Police had been contacted and attended the scene shortly after 1700 UTC together with hearth service personnel.

Information of the incident broke in native press the next morning (Mar. 27) with a affirmation from the police that no accidents had been reported. The UK Air Accident Investigation Department (AAIB) additionally confirmed that they’ve opened an investigation.

Chief Govt Officer of Draken Worldwide Nic Anderson confirmed that the incident had concerned a towed goal from one of many firm’s plane, and mentioned Draken was “incredibly sorry for this very serious accident”.

Talking to BBC Radio Cornwall, Anderson defined:

“As we had been releasing the cable out from the winch beneath the wing, the mechanism to manage the discharge malfunctioned, which meant we may neither wind that again in or launch it and discharge it into the ocean. In that case, the crew adopted the procedures and declared an emergency to hunt the closest airport to divert to. It seems that on the strategy to Newquay, the cable and the goal had been launched. That’s the particles that basically sadly fell on the farm and a few properties.”

Alongside the harm to the home, the cable used to tow the goal was discovered strewn throughout a close-by subject. Draken have confirmed that each one goal towing from their plane can be suspended till the methods used might be assured as secure.

Rundle says she feels very lucky, believing it was a freak accident. Residing in Tregaswith, lower than a mile from the airport, low flying plane are a each day incidence. She questions why the cable had not been reduce off, or the plane diverted over water, however as we all know from subsequent statements from Draken an try had already been made to ditch the defective gear.

Goal Towing

Goal towing is certainly one of many capabilities provided by Draken’s Falcon 20 fleet, that are based mostly at Bournemouth Airport and Teesside Airport. Below contract to the UK Ministry of Defence, the plane fly virtually each day missions offering Pink Air providers towards Royal Air Drive, Royal Navy, and allied models. They are often outfitted with quite a lot of digital warfare pods, and it’s, reportedly, not unusual to listen to them jamming communications frequencies by blasting loud music over them.

Different pods can be utilized to interface with the software program of opposing plane, permitting the Falcons to imitate the radar and emissions signatures of adversarial plane like the Su-34 ‘Fullback’ and their weapons. Earlier than their retirement in 2022, Hawk T1s of 736 Naval Air Squadron would work intently with the Draken Falcons. Of their signature transfer, used towards ships throughout coaching workout routines, would see Hawks type on the wing of the Falcon earlier than ‘launching’ themselves to simulate a sea-skimming anti-ship missile attack.

View from again seat of a Hawk jet of 736 Naval Air Squadron making simulated assault on @hms_albion and escorting frigate throughout air defence train

through @RNASCuldrose pic.twitter.com/6NuYK1GDs2

— Navy Lookout (@NavyLookout) October 25, 2019

The Falcons had been beforehand operated by Cobham Plc till that company’s acquisition by Draken International in 2020. Although not younger plane (G-FRAD itself is roughly 50 years previous), they’ve been properly maintained and no alternative is thought to be pending.

For goal towing, the Falcons make use of a Parker Meggitt RM-30 winch. This winch can accommodate a towline as much as 31,000 toes in size and is an trade commonplace for navy coaching in nations internationally. The goal fitted to the top of the reel is right down to the wants of the top buyer. In Draken’s case, one such choice is the ‘Black Kite’, seen within the picture beneath mounted on a hardpoint to the correct of the winch system.

The Black Kite might be configured to fly at completely different altitudes, with the flexibility to copy a sea-skimming missile right down to a top of 25 toes above sea degree.

Apparently, goal towing is much from a brand new introduction to Cornish skies. Way back to the early Second World Struggle, total bases have been devoted to the apply within the area to coach anti-aircraft gunners and fighter pilots. RAF Cleave, now GCHQ Bude, was used extensively for this mission, turning into a launch website for the de Havilland Queen Bee goal drone. The Queen Bee, the truth is, is regarded as the origin for using the time period ‘drone’ to imply unmanned plane.

In the course of the Chilly Struggle, goal towing befell from RNAS Culdrose and RAF St Mawgan, the latter airfield now being house to Cornwall Airport Newquay. Though goal towing has turn into rarer since these occasions, it has additionally turn into a lot safer. There are actually many extra security guidelines that should be adopted throughout goal towing operations, and the gear itself advantages from a long time of design expertise.

Sadly, as with all issues, once in a while issues will go fallacious and incidents like this will happen. We might be grateful that no particular person on the bottom was harmed, and hope that repairs might be made to the broken property as quickly as potential.