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Navy officials responded that no drones had been downed by enemy fire, although the Pentagon acknowledged that it had lost a small number of ScanEagles, likely to engine malfunction, over Afghanistan and in the Persian Gulf region. The drone that the Iranians showcased appeared cobbled together after a crash — thus earning the nickname "FrankenEagle" across the Navy.

Regardless, the loss was hardly an intelligence coup for Iran, since ScanEagle carries only off-the-shelf video equipment with less computing power than can be found in a smartphone.

"They could have gone to Radio Shack and captured the same 'secret' technology," said Vice Adm. Mark I. Fox, the Navy's deputy chief for operations, plans and strategy.

The minor diplomatic contretemps over the fallen drone did, however, shine an unwanted light on the growing role of these relatively low-cost, nearly expendable unmanned surveillance aircraft in military operations over the Persian Gulf, as well as in North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and in the Asia-Pacific region.

A ScanEagle flying off the deck of the destroyer Bainbridge is credited with providing images critical to the ability of Navy SEAL snipers to identify and kill three hijackers holding hostage the captain of the Maersk Alabama off the coast of Africa in 2009. And a ScanEagle flying from the destroyer Mahan provided images of Libya in the first 72 hours of a North Africa mission by American and NATO forces in 2011 to protect civilians and then support rebels who overthrew Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Most ScanEagles are owned and flown by contractors; some of these private crews are even based aboard American warships. The drones are considered an important addition in the military's surveillance architecture, which ranges from very costly spy satellites to advanced drones like Predators and Reapers, which carry advanced surveillance systems and can be armed with missiles, and down to the low-tech ScanEagle.

ScanEagles fly from two Navy ships in the Persian Gulf area, the Ponce and the Gunstan Hall, both amphibious support and staging vessels; they also fly from one ground operations center in the region established when a ScanEagle unit serving in Iraq was withdrawn as the mission there ended.

Since it can be launched on short notice, ScanEagle's value is in allowing local commanders the ability to gather close-in, live and real-time images of an immediate target.

"Anybody who goes to sea is interested in having an understanding of the environment in which they are operating," Admiral Fox said. "These low-end assets give you an ability to have a much better understanding of what's going on around you. Who's in that dhow? What flag is it flying? But we are still in an early stage of it."

Navy officers say that adding another layer of surveillance aircraft to the American fleet also has a deterrent effect on Iran.

"The fact that we are physically present with more and more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets — the Iranians know we are out there watching," said one officer familiar with ScanEagle deployments. "We are flying in international airspace and over international waters. But these assets give us ground truth on what everybody is doing in the gulf."

But the increased surveillance flights do carry a risk of provoking Tehran at a time of increased international tensions over its disputed nuclear program.

Last November, Iranian warplanes shot at an Air Force surveillance drone flying over the Persian Gulf. Pentagon officials said the Predator was in international airspace and was not hit, and that the episode prompted a strong protest to the Iranian government. Iran said the Predator had violated its airspace.

And in late 2011, an RQ-170 surveillance drone operated by the C.I.A. rather than the military crashed deep inside Iranian territory while on a mission that is believed to have been intended to map suspected nuclear sites. That episode came to light only after Iran bragged that it had hacked into the drone's controls and guided it to a landing inside its borders. American officials said the drone had crashed after a technical malfunction.