US experts: Iran capture of stealth drone no worry

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military officials say they are concerned that a stealthy surveillance drone crashed in Iran and could give Tehran the opportunity to glean information about the classified program.

But experts said Monday that even if the Iranians found parts of the unmanned spy plane, they will likely get little from it. And since it probably fell from a high altitude, there may be very few large pieces to examine.

The RQ-170 — known as the Sentinel — has been used in Afghanistan for several years. U.S. officials acknowledge that the military lost control of one of the stealthy drones while it was flying a mission over western Afghanistan. The official IRNA news agency has said that Iran's armed forces shot it down.

U.S. officials have rejected that claim.