Today we witnessed an unusual mission (still ongoing) conducted by a USAF Northrop Grumman RQ-4B (reg. 10-2045 – c/s FORTE14), taking off from NAS Sigonella.
The drone departed from the Sicilian base heading east to carry out what seemed like a surveillance mission over the Eastern Mediterranean.
However, the Global Hawk flew over Israel; after reaching Jordan, it turned south. At this point, it appeared that the drone was heading towards the Red Sea, but just before entering Saudi Arabian airspace, it turned back. It then conducted a series of orbits over Jordan before heading back over the Mediterranean and orbiting along the coast of Lebanon.
We don’t know if the originally planned mission was indeed this (which would be strange) or if something was modified during the operation.