US Air Force BACN aircraft crash: What we know so far
Peshawar: Afghan Taliban on Monday claimed to have shot down a US aircraft in Ghazni province, killing many high ranking CIA officials.
A spokesman issued by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter stated that the aircraft was being used for surveillance.
He further claimed “bodies of the those killed lying at site”.
The U.S. military confirmed the crash by an E-11A military aircraft in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province but, despite claims by Taliban insurgents that they shot it down, said there were “no indications the crash was caused by enemy fire.”
“Taliban claims that additional aircraft have crashed are false,” a U.S. military spokesman, Colonel Sonny Leggett, wrote on Twitter.
Pictures and video footage circulating on social media shows that a U.S. Air Force E-11A Battlefield Airborne Control Node, or BACN.
BACN is a United States Air Force (USAF) airborne communications relay and gateway system carried by the unmanned EQ-4B and the manned Bombardier E-11A aircraft. BACN enables real-time information flow across the battlespace between similar and dissimilar tactical data link and voice systems through relay, bridging, and data translation in line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight situations. BACN BACN is a United States Air Force (USAF) airborne communications relay and gateway system carried by the unmanned EQ-4B and the manned Bombardier E-11A aircraft. BACN enables real-time information flow across the battlespace between similar and dissimilar tactical data link and voice systems through relay, bridging, and data translation in line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight situations.
Its ability to translate between dissimilar communications systems allows them to interoperate without modification.