In the latest sign that unmanned vehicles are an increasingly pivotal part of a modern military, a drone boat rescued the two-person crew from the U.S. Apache helicopter gunship that went down near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command said.
It was the first U.S. rescue carried out by an autonomous surface vessel, remotely piloted by a human operator, the Central Command spokesman, Capt. Tim Hawkins, said on Tuesday.
“The surface drone that assisted in last night’s rescue of the Apache crew off the coast of Oman was a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel operated by U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59,” Captain Hawkins said in a text message. “The task force began fielding these drones in theater in late March.”
The 24-foot-long Corsair, built by the company Saronic Technologies, runs on diesel fuel and can travel at speeds of up to 35 knots. The vessel can carry a load of up to 1,000 pounds and has a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles.
The Corsair was used for the mission because of “proximity and capability factors,” according to Captain Hawkins. The vessel carried the Apache’s pilot and gunner to another location, where they were picked up by a helicopter to complete the rescue.
The AH-64 Apache gunship, one of the most fearsome types of aircraft operating in the region, went down near the coast of Oman while on patrol. A U.S. official later said that the helicopter had been brought down by a one-way Iranian attack drone. Iran’s state broadcaster, citing an unnamed military official, warned against “renewed enemy aggression under the pretext of the crash of a military helicopter,” suggesting that Tehran was not responsible.
Unmanned attack drones, including Iran’s Shaheds, have received most of the attention in discussions of unmanned aerial vehicles during the war with the United States and Israel, but drones operate on land and sea as well.
In Ukraine, the military is using unmanned ground vehicles for medical evacuations, moving supplies and, increasingly, to conduct attacks in its war with Russia. Ukraine has also made extensive use of sea drones, attacking Russian ships in the Black Sea and even using autonomous surface vessels armed with antiaircraft missiles to shoot down warplanes.
The United States Navy is not new to sea drones.
As far back as 2022, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command announced that it had operated unmanned surface vessels in the vicinity of Bahrain, where it is headquartered, for 25,000 hours. The command’s Task Force 59 commissioned a new group in January 2024 to work on unmanned systems.
Saronic has a $392 million production contract with the U.S. Navy for autonomous surface vessels. Headquartered in Austin, Tex., the company was founded less than four years ago, in September 2022. Saronic already has more than 1,300 employees.
The company’s chief executive, Dino Mavrookas, was a member of the Navy SEALs for 11 years and was on eight combat tours, according to Saronic’s website.
