RobotRisk Autonomous Systems Incident & Risk Register
RobotRisk / General Atomics / U.S. Air Force / 2025-11

U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper Drone Crashes Off South Korea

S4 · 11/2025 · General Atomics / U.S. Air Force · Yellow Sea, Off South Korea

Record

CompanyGeneral Atomics / U.S. Air Force
Categoryother
Typecrash
Date11/2025
Time of daynot documented
LocationYellow Sea, Off South Korea
SeverityS4 (serious injury, total loss, or grounding)
Scale1 aircraft lost
Confidencehigh
VerificationYes - adversarially checked against the cited source
SourceCNN / The New York Times

What happened

A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone assigned to the 431st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron crashed into the Yellow Sea near Maldo-Ri Island off South Korea's west coast; the ~$28 million aircraft was recovered the following month.

General Atomics / U.S. Air Force record context

Entries by year and severity

012024 S4: 11242025 S4: 1125
S1S2S3S4S5

By incident type

By severity

General Atomics / U.S. Air Force vs other alternatives

other context

other: entries by year

14282017 S1: 12017 S5: 12172019 S3: 11192021 S3: 11212022 S5: 11222023 S3: 12023 S4: 23232024 S1: 22024 S2: 42024 S3: 32024 S4: 72024 S5: 521242025 S1: 12025 S2: 72025 S3: 62025 S4: 82025 S5: 628252026 S1: 12026 S2: 92026 S3: 32026 S4: 22026 S5: 31826
S1S2S3S4S5

other: failure modes

other: most entries

crash context

crash: by category

crash: by year

crash: severity profile

Comparable crash events in other

SevDateCompanyEvent
S22026-05-25KarsanKarsan autonomous bus collides with tram in Gothenburg on debut day
S22026-01-17Zoox (Amazon)Zoox Robotaxi Collides with Open Car Door, Injuring San Francisco Street Ambassador
S22026-01-16Uber Eats delivery robot operatorDelivery robot destroyed after getting stuck on train tracks
S42025-12-06Hellobike (Hello Inc.)Hellobike Robotaxi Strikes Two Pedestrians in Zhuzhou, China; Service Suspended
S42025-12-06BaiduBaidu Apollo RT6 robotaxi (operated by Hello) hits two pedestrians, traps one under car in Zhuzhou
S22025-12Nishi Tokyo Bus Co. (Tokyo Metropolitan Government autonomous bus demonstration)Autonomous bus accident in Hachioji (Takao) traced to system defect, Tokyo announces recurrence-prevention measures
S22025-08Hong Kong Airport Authority (autonomous shuttle)Driverless shuttle bus hits tow tractor in second Hong Kong airport collision
S22025-06-22Hong Kong Airport Authority (autonomous shuttle)Driverless bus crash at Hong Kong airport

Other General Atomics / U.S. Air Force entries

Also from Critical Systems Analysis: CSA - functional safety engineering · Company directory · FSTalent - functional safety jobs