Ooops

Aviation Week (03.16.07), via DangerRoom:

"Lockheed Martin is back at square one with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight-testing after the December crash of its P-175 Polecat demonstrator, which is only now being disclosed."

"The aircraft went down on Dec. 18, 2006 at the Nevada Test and Training Range, according to U.S. Air Force officials who run the range."

Polecat Crash Sets Back LM UAV efforts

Lockheed's explanation of what happened is priceless. The crash was caused by an "'irreversible unintentional failure in the flight termination ground equipment, which caused the aircraft's automatic fail-safe flight termination mode to activate'."

The translation of this, according to Danger Room, is that someone accidentally pushed the self-destruct button.

This is very good news, according to Lockheed, in that "the flight termination system 'performed exactly as expected'."