A US Navy surveillance drone spent hours tracing the Cuban coastline this week. But the aircraft in question, an MQ-4C Triton with the callsign BLKCAT6, isn't just any drone. It is a $240 million high-altitude surveillance platform built to loiter for over 24 hours, scanning vast stretches of ocean and coastline in a single mission. The unusual move comes at a time of rising tensions between Washington andHavana.
Flight-tracking data shows it wasn't passing through but watching.
The drone lingered off Havana on Wednesday evening, then shifted south, monitoring the nearly 200-kilometer-wide Jamaica Channel, a critical maritime corridor linking the Panama Canal to the Atlantic.
Also Read:US Navy's $200-Million Drone Goes 'Missing' Over Hormuz After Distress Signal
Cuba appears to be a part of a broader geopolitical chess game stretching from Venezuela to Iran to Southeast Asia. Each sits near a critical energy or trade chokepoint and maps a pressure grid around China's supply lines. From these waters, the US can monitor and, if needed, disrupt shipping flows moving between the Atlantic and key canal routes.
Open-source tracking data captured the Triton's looping path in near real-time. While high-end surveillance missions can be concealed, this one wasn't. Which suggests that the US wanted China to know.
The MQ-4C Triton, worth over Rs $200 million, is the only autonomous high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) maritime aircraft capable of operating at altitudes above 50,000 ft, for 24-plus hours with a range of 7,400 nautical miles.
Unlike traditional aircraft, the Triton provides long-hour strategic surveillance over chokepoints. It is engineered for persistent, large-scale maritime surveillance, frequently serving as the high-altitude eyes for P-8A Poseidon patrol planes.
Days ago, a Triton drone went "missing" after completing roughly a three-hour surveillance of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
The incident came just two days into the US-Iran ceasefire, with Tehran agreeing to reopen Hormuz for shipping traffic.
Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now
