One reason is weight. I know it doesn’t sound like much but they try and conserve every ounce for fuel. Also you can not be sure that it will destroy what you needed. The reporting said they wiped everything. But that wasn’t an option when I was flying them. Not sure about now. Our procedure was to nose dive it and destroy everything on impact. Like I said I don’t know what new logic it may have. I gave been out of the business since 2018.
I guess that right would depend on the legal right of a country to declare sections of the air over international waters as a restricted area, when not their territory.
This in my opinion was inevitable. Weve been flying RQ 4B global hawks every other day for the past month or more over the black sea …flying the length of the crimean peninsula. Flights last about 8 to 10 hours. This was sure to attract the attention of the Russians at some point.
I’ve held this question for decades. Back when the Mayaguez was held hostage in 1975 I was asking this. Stuff we left behind in Afghanistan? Blow it up remotely. Anything that gets into the hands of the enemy. Trigger the self-destruct.
I’ve been told that the risk of accidental detonation is too high. Even worse, if the enemy figures out how to detonate it themselves, then they can blow up our entire army as it approaches.