Florida Charter Crew Pulls Military Drone From Gulf Waters
Goldlaner.com – A routine offshore fishing trip near Florida’s Panhandle took an unusual turn Saturday when a Pensacola charter crew spotted a military-style drone floating on the water and brought it aboard.
Hot Spots Charters shared photographs of the discovery on Facebook, showing the unmanned aircraft alongside the kind of catches usually associated with a day on the Gulf: speckled trout, redfish, flounder, mackerel and sharks. In one image, the drone stretches across much of the boat’s bow.
“Great 6 hour today with this crew! If anyone is looking for their drone please call Hot Spots!”
Captain Daniel Arsenault later said the encounter was entirely accidental. The crew was traveling offshore when the object came into view.
“Riding along offshore and saw it floating.”
Drone linked to Air Force test activity
The aircraft was found near Eglin Air Force Base, a major military installation in northwest Florida and home to the US Air Force’s 96th Test Wing. An Eglin spokesperson confirmed that an item used in a test had gone down and that a drone was missing from the base’s inventory, without identifying the specific model.
“I can confirm that we were doing a test and the test article went down.”
Images released by the charter company appeared to show a drone missing both its nose section and the rear propeller. Its shape resembled the FLM 136, an American-produced version of Iran’s Shahed-136 design.
The Shahed-136 has become closely associated with modern conflicts in Ukraine and Iran. The low-cost, propeller-driven aircraft is designed as a one-way attack drone, meaning it can be directed toward a target rather than returned for recovery. Its widespread use has also drawn attention to the growing role of relatively inexpensive unmanned systems in military operations.
The US-developed LUCAS program
Late last year, the Air Force disclosed that it had developed a clone of the Iranian-designed system under the name Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS. The FLM 136 is understood to be part of that effort.
Arizona-based Spektreworks manufactures the drones. The aircraft measure 9.8 feet, or 2.9 meters, from nose to tail, with an 8.2-foot wingspan and a weight of about 70 pounds. Those dimensions help explain why recovering the object was more than a minor inconvenience for the fishing crew: it occupied a substantial portion of the boat’s forward deck.
US Central Command said in early March that LUCAS drones were being used during the war with Iran, describing the missions as delivering American-made retaliation. The system’s design reflects a broader military focus on unmanned weapons that can be produced and deployed at lower cost than many traditional aircraft and missiles.
For people on the water, however, the sight of such an aircraft can be startling. The Gulf Coast near Eglin is an area where military training and test activity is a familiar part of the regional landscape, but a test article floating offshore is far removed from the typical expectations of a recreational charter trip.
An unusual catch returns to its owner
Hot Spots Charters later posted that officials had recovered the drone.
“The black suvs came and got their drone, all is good!”
The episode also prompted anglers online to treat the discovery as an especially strange version of the day’s catch. One commenter joked:
“Fun fight but they’re super bony and taste like avgas.”
Another asked:
“Aren’t those strictly catch and release?”
While the joking focused on fishing language, the recovery highlighted the unexpected overlap between Florida’s charter-boat economy and the military presence along the Panhandle. What began as a normal six-hour trip became an encounter with a 70-pound piece of advanced defense equipment—and a story likely to stand apart from any ordinary haul of fish.
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