Tom Watson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-06-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department maintains (a) mission reports, (b) guided missile firing reports, (c) weapon system videos and (d) any other munitions release records for the UK Reaper fleet following the change of operational command to US pilots.

Mr Mark Francois

Each UK Reaper sortie has a mission report produced post flight. If a weapon is fired during a sortie, a weapon report is completed detailing the engagement, as well as a video produced of the engagement itself. There are no other munitions release records for the UK Reaper fleet. US pilots have not flown UK Reaper except during the launch and recovery phase.

Outside of the launch and recovery phase, UK Remotely Piloted Air Systems have always been operated by UK pilots.