A US MQ-9 Reaper has crashed near Djibouti's Chabelley Airbase, triggering a US embassy security alert as questions mount over what brought the drone down. A US MQ-9 Reaper drone has crashed near Chabelley Airbase in Djibouti, triggering a security alert from the US embassy and adding a fresh layer of uncertainty to an already tense Red Sea region. The US embassy in Djibouti said on Sunday that it was ‘tracking an aircraft in distress in Djiboutian airspace’ and advised people to stay away from the area surrounding the airbase. Multiple regional media reports and open-source intelligence accounts have identified the aircraft as a US Air Force MQ-9A Reaper. For now, the key question remains unanswered: did the Reaper fall because of a technical failure, or was it brought down?