By Mike Stone and Fernando Robles
WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) – A small California-based drone maker says one of its sea vessels sailed close enough to a Chinese warship operating inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone to capture what it believes is the first footage of its kind recorded by a private U.S. firm.
It shared the video taken on June 16 with Reuters, which has independently verified its authenticity.
Seasats, a six-year-old producer of autonomous surface vessels, said its Lightfish drone approached a People’s Liberation Army Navy ship off Luzon Island in waters where Beijing’s military presence has become a persistent source of regional tension.
The Philippine Coast Guard reported an increased presence of Chinese maritime forces, including warships, in the area last year compared to 2024.
The Seasats footage is striking less for what it shows of the Chinese vessel than for what it reveals about the changing nature of war: a small drone that costs about $240,000 can get close to – and theoretically threaten – a billion-dollar warship. In this case, it was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Type 052D guided-missile destroyer.
“We’re able to go out and film and get up close and record all this data off of a Chinese ship,” Seasats CEO Mike Flanigan said.
Reuters verified the identity of the vessel as a Chinese Type 052D destroyer by the deck layout, superstructure, crane and mast, which matched archive imagery.
The location where the videos were filmed was verified as 105 km (65 miles) northwest of Luzon Island by reviewing Seasats data. The date was verified by the original file metadata.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was not familiar with the situation and had nothing to share.
The Philippine embassy said it would “remind all parties to avoid actions that would escalate tensions, especially if found trespassing through the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone.”
Seasats said it has had multiple encounters with Chinese naval vessels over the years, including Type 052 destroyers, Type 055 destroyers and Type 056 corvettes.
The company said its vessels’ small, low profile often allows them to navigate without detection, though both the drone and the Chinese ship emit electronic signatures from their radars and other electronic scanning equipment.
The Lightfish is the smallest vessel in Seasats’ current lineup and can be deployed from the back of a pickup truck, small craft or boat ramp and launched and recovered in minutes. The drone can be carried and launched by one or two people and is designed to operate for months at a time.
Each vessel is hybrid-fueled for missions of up to six months and is operational in Sea State 6 conditions that can have waves up to 20 feet (6 m) high.
Lightfish vessels have carried electro-optical and infrared cameras, signals intelligence and electronic warfare payloads, and active and passive sonar systems.
Seasats has raised more than $40 million in funding and has recently been awarded more than $100 million in U.S. government contracts.
The company also makes the larger Quickfish drone, which is moving into production. Quickfish differentiates itself from similar platforms through a payload bay designed to deliver unmanned aerial vehicles or possibly munitions. A third vessel, Heavyfish, is in the design phase.
(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Don Durfee and Jamie Freed)
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