A secret Ministry of Defence funded drone worth £5 million has crashed in a remote part of Western Australia during tests.

The Zephyr - described as the world’s first unmanned aircraft of its kind to fly in the stratosphere - went down during tests flights being conducted by Airbus, its manufacturer, on behalf of the MoD.

The drone, which is the latest of a series of unmanned British military aircraft to crash during tests and reconnaissance operations, is designed to hover at more than 65,000 feet for months at a time. It can be used for surveillance or to provide a temporary boost to communications.

In 2017 two multi-million pound British Army reconnaissance drones crashed into the sea earlier leading commanders to temporarily ground the fleet.

Three years earlier a multimillion pound Army reconnaissance Watchkeeper drone had to be written off when it nose-dived into a runway because of a computer glitch.

It has now emerged the Zephyr, which has a 25-metre wingspan, crashed near the remote town of Wyndham, 1242 miles from the state capital of Perth, last month.