Lankan UAV crash landed in sea waters

Colombo, Apr 20 (UNI) An Un-manned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) of the Sri Lankan Air Force has crashed landed into the eastern sea waters today, a top Air Force official said.

''One of our UAV on a routine mission was forced landed into the safer sea areas between Kokklai and Pulmoddai after it developed system mulfunctioning,'' Air Force spokesman, Group Captain Ajanatha Silva told UNI over the phone.

He said the helicopter gunships have already been rushed to the scene to recover the UAV engine.

Sri Lankan Air Force has already lost three UAVs since 1997 and this was the fourth one.

Sri Lankan air force supersonic jets have been pounding on suspected LTTE targets in the rebel-held North-East region almost on a regular basis, causing enormous damage to the rebels.

On March 25 a couple of LTTE light wing aircrafts carried out a midnight attack on the Sri Lankan Air Force base at Katunayake killing atleast three air force personnel on duty.

UNI