Two U.S. MQM-170 Outlaw Drones Downed and Captured by Iranian Electronic Warfare Units

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has reported that its Aerospace Force used advanced electronic warfare systems to bring down two U.S. MQM-170 unmanned aircraft over Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, reportedly capturing the aircraft intact. The reported incidents appear to involve two separate operations. On October 29, the IRGC Navy announced that its electronic warfare personnel had seized control of an MQM-170 drone west of the Strait of Hormuz and brought it down intact. The following day, the IRGC Aerospace Force reported capturing another aircraft of the same type over Qeshm Island, describing it as the second such recovery by Iranian personnel. Iranian outlets subsequently circulated footage showing the recovered aircraft.

The MQM-170 Outlaw is an American unmanned aircraft developed by Griffon Aerospace. The family has primarily been associated with aerial target and decoy missions, allowing military forces to simulate hostile aircraft and test air defence systems under realistic conditions. The aircraft can also contribute to intelligence gathering if equipped with suitable sensors. Iranian officials have claimed that the aircraft were being used to gather intelligence on Iranian air defence deployments along the Persian Gulf coast and around the Strait of Hormuz. Such missions could help an opposing force identify radar locations, assess the reactions of air defence units and collect information on the operation of surveillance and interception systems. Reliance on the MQM-170 for such operations could reflect a response to the rapid losses taken by the MQ-9 Reaper fleet during operations against Iran, which are much higher value aircraft that cannot be easily replaced.

Iranian state media described the capture of the two drones as evidence of the country’s ability to neutralise foreign unmanned platforms by disrupting their guidance and control systems rather than destroying them with conventional air defence weapons. The IRGC is estimated to have brought down a total of 55 hostile drones over the Strait of Hormuz since the United States launched an assault on Iran in February, with dozens more shot down in other parts of Iran. While electronic warfare systems can interfere with communications links, navigation signals or other electronic functions on which an unmanned aircraft are reliant, the effectiveness of such an approach depends on the drone’s architecture, its degree of autonomy, the resilience of its navigation and control systems, and the electronic protection measures employed. Access to the aircraft’s onboard equipment could provide Iranian specialists with an opportunity to examine their construction, navigation systems, communications hardware and mission payloads, revealing technical characteristics that would otherwise be difficult to establish from radar tracking or wreckage.

The capture of U.S. unmanned aircraft by Iranian forces is far from unprecedented. The most notable incident occurred in 2011 when a successful Iranian electronic attack on a CIA-operated Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone forced it to land, leading to its recovery in tact and subsequent use as the basis for a series of flying wing stealth drones. The RQ-170 was one of the stealthiest military aircraft in the world at the time. In September 2026 the IRGC announced that Iran’s defence sector would begin reverse engineering a U.S. unmanned submarine captured by the Corps in the Strait of Hormuz. With the United States having relied particularly heavily on unmanned systems in its war effort against Iran, they have suffered very heavy losses. In mid-October it was confirmed that at least 81 American military aircraft had been lost or damaged during the U.S.-led war effort against Iran since February 28, including at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones.