Fisherman Recovers Missile

The Catch of the Day: a Navy target missile.

A prawn fisherman who spotted the unarmed missile bobbing off the California coast Tuesday afternoon now stands to collect a $500 reward for recovering the $220,000 drone.

It was the most valuable catch from a fishing trip written off as otherwise “pretty much a bust,” Morro Bay skipper Craig Lewis said Wednesday as he waited at Ventura Harbor for officials from Point Mugu’s Target Operations Division to pick up their missile.

Lewis noticed the tip of the bright orange missile poking out of the water as his boat, South Bay, headed from Catalina Island toward Santa Barbara Island about 2 p.m. Tuesday.

“I originally thought it could possibly be a life raft,” he said.

But when Lewis and his two crew members saw a gray, red and blue star on one of the missile’s fins, “I immediately called the Coast Guard, ‘cause we realized it was military,” Lewis said.

The drone was one of eight used as targets during a Feb. 24 training and testing mission west of San Nicholas Island, said Bob Williams, head of the Target Operations Division. It was launched from the beach at Point Mugu and fired on by one of eight naval ships about 60 miles away in the Naval Sea Test Range.

The Navy flies about 50 drones a year for training, Williams said, and can usually track them electronically and recover them soon after they go down. But once or twice a year, a drone will fall out of sight.

Lewis correctly figured that the Northrop-Grumman missile he found, called a Chukar, was unarmed.

“Most of your drones are either orange or blue,” he said. “Green or gray, stay away.”

In last week’s mission, the Navy was testing its guidance systems and had not armed the missiles used to fire on the drones from aboard ship.

“Because these are recoverable targets and they’re expensive, [we don’t] use a warhead in the missile,” Williams said.

The drone that Lewis found had been hit by one of the missiles and had some damage, including small shrapnel holes in its body and a broken wing and tail, Williams said.

Lewis fishes for an Oregon company, Fox Fisheries, that sells prawns mainly in Asia. On a typical day, he said, his nets could take in $1,000 worth of the large shrimp, but trawling the waters from San Diego northward has been disappointing. Lewis was expecting a better catch in Northern California, where the 60-foot boat was heading Wednesday.

But after finding the missile, this week’s trip wasn’t a complete loss.

“By far, this is probably the most interesting thing I’ve caught,” Lewis said, adding that he once found a drone fired by Teledyne, but the company didn’t want it back.

The Navy is not so wasteful, thus the reward. Repaired, the drone that Lewis found could make two or three more flights, Williams said.

As for his reward, Lewis said, “I’ll probably split it up between myself and the crew.”

And for anyone else looking to net a fast $500, Williams said one drone from last week’s scenario is still missing.

*

’ Most of your drones are either orange or blue. Green or gray, stay away.’

Craig Lewis, a prawn fisherman from Morro Bay, who discovered the unarmed missile