U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials were forced to crash a defective drone into the Pacific Ocean on Monday night.
The drone, used by the Department of Homeland Security to oversee the United States' border with Mexico, plunged into the water, just off the coast of San Diego, Calif. at about 1:15 a.m. According to CBP spokesperson Mike Friel who spoke with the Associated Press, a small crew flying the craft from Texas deliberately crashed the drone, due to an unspecified mechanical failure.
"The crew determined that the UAS would be unable to return to where it originated in Sierra Vista, Ariz.," Friel wrote in a statement, using the acronym for the drone's official title, Unmanned Aircraft System. "[They] put the aircraft down in the water."
Coast Guard officials were sent to the site of the crash, located about 20 miles southwest of Point Loma, to clear debris from the drone in the water.
According to NBC's local station in San Diego, the drone was on a border security mission when the technical difficulty occurred. The cause of the failure has not yet been determined.
The $18 million aircraft, known as Predator B, was one of two other drones built with radars used especially for ocean surveillance.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, a San Diego-based drone company, makes the Predator B aircraft, which can fly up to 50,000 feet for as long as 20 hours.
