On Monday, April 6, 2026, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) announced that one of at least three YFQ-42A Dark Merlin unmanned aircraft prototypes built had crashed during a test flight. The incident occurred after takeoff from an unspecified facility in California at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
Photo: GA-ASI
No one was injured in the incident. Flight test operations have been paused temporarily in an abundance of caution.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) is assessing the condition of the aircraft and investigating to establish the root cause of the incident. At this early stage, it would be premature to speculate on the circumstances. As with any program, we follow a disciplined investigation process to understand exactly what occurred, and our focus right now is on gathering data and ensuring we learn from this event.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.
The aircraft was one of several prototypes in the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) Increment 1 program for the U.S. Air Force (USAF); at least three are known to have flown. The company added that the aircraft have been flying regularly from company-operated facilities as part of the test and operational evaluation program. Those flight operations will resume if deemed appropriate.
“Safety is our top priority, for our people and the public. In this case, established procedures and safeguards worked as intended, and there were no injuries,” said C. Mark Brinkley, a company spokesman. “We’re going to take a close look at what happened, gather all the data, and allow the investigation to guide us moving forward.”
The official U.S. Air Force prefix “Y” indicates that the first aircraft are early test models representative of the production design, while “F” stands for fighter and “Q” for unmanned aircraft. The name Dark Merlin, announced on February 23 this year, comes from a subspecies of the merlin, a medium-sized bird of prey from the falcon family.
Earlier, on February 12 this year, GA-ASI said it had carried out the first semi-autonomous flight on one of the YFQ-42A prototypes using Sidekick Collaborative Mission Autonomy software from Collins Aerospace, part of RTX.
The YFQ-42A Dark Merlin’s competitor in Increment 1 of the CCA program is the YFQ-44A Fury from Anduril Industries.
It is worth recalling that on April 4, 2024, the Department of the Air Force announced the selection of both companies’ bids for the next stage of the CCA program, while the alphanumeric designations YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A were disclosed on March 3, 2025, by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin.
The first YFQ-42A prototype (Tail One) made its maiden flight on August 17, 2025, and in less than six months GA-ASI built and flew two additional aircraft.
The CCA program is part of the broader Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative. Long-term plans call for the acquisition of as many as 200 sixth-generation NGAD multirole aircraft and at least 1,000 CCA drones. On March 21, 2025, it was announced that Boeing had been selected to build the crewed F-47 as the successor to the fifth-generation Lockheed F-22A Raptor air-superiority fighter.
The Netherlands has also announced its intention to join the CCA program.
STATEMENT ON YFQ-42A CCA FLIGHT INCIDENT
A YFQ-42A Collaborative Combat Aircraft test platform experienced a mishap following takeoff from a company-owned airport in the California desert on Monday at approximately 1 p.m. Pacific.
No one was injured in the incident. Flight… pic.twitter.com/9Gdh4362HB
— General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc (GA-ASI) (@GenAtomics_ASI) April 6, 2026
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