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Military Blimp Breaks Free and Drifts Over the Mid-Atlantic Trailing Tether (baltimoresun.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the on-the-loose dept.

McGruber writes: The Baltimore Sun reports that a military surveillance blimp has broken free of its mooring at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and was last seen drifting at 16,000 ft over Pennsylvania. The 243-foot-long, helium-filled JLENS (Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System) aerostat detached from its mooring at about 11:54 a.m. Wednesday. It was trailing approximately 6,700 feet of cable. "Anyone who sees the aerostat is advised to contact 911 immediately," spokeswoman Heather Roelker said. "People are warned to keep a safe distance from the airship and tether as contact with them may present significant danger."

3 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Catastrophic Failure? by RumGunner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    FTFA: "Raytheon, the contractor that makes the blimps, says the cable is unlikely to break.

    "The chance of that happening is very small because the tether is made of Vectran and has withstood storms in excess of 100 knots," the company said on its website. "However, in the unlikely event it does happen, there are a number of procedures and systems in place which are designed to bring the aerostat down in a safe manner.""

    So what exactly happened? The cable broke, AND they are unable to get the blimp to safely land?

  2. How could they not know exactly where it is? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How could they lose it? Surely after $2.5B spent on the program, they had enough money to slap a GPS tracker on it.

  3. Re:Save the Helium! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interesting aside: It was the filling of these two aerostats that exhausted the US supply of Helium a year or two ago.