Iran Claimed Capturing US Drone; US Rejected the Claim

On 4 December 2012, Iran claimed that it had captured the small US drone which had entered its airspace on the Gulf waters. Nevertheless, American navy in that region denied this claim on the grounds that none of its unmanned spy planes went missing.
 
The naval arm of Iranian Revolutionary Guards claimed that the unmanned US drone which was patrolling over the Persian Gulf waters and gathered intel was captured immediately when it entered the airspace of Iran. However it was not made clear how this drone was captured or when it was captured.

The Guards' naval force guarding the Iranian assets in the Gulf described the drone as well. It was described as Boeing-made ScanEagle, short-range, propeller-driven inspection vehicle that had a 3-metre wingspan. Such kind of a drone is launched from the ships and can fly till 100 km.

On 4 December 2011, Iran had claimed that it captured a bigger and more sophisticated CIA secrecy drone which was bat-winged. Tehran had rejected the plea from US to return back this drone and cleared that the drone would be re-engineered so that it became that of Iran’s.

Contrarily, the US Fifth Fleet made it clear that none of the drones of the fleet were missing or lost in the recent months.