[juancb]

You're overlooking one critical point in your deduction about type of NVGs used. The drone was visible with the naked eye due to a green position light, which should have been enhanced and been visible under through the night vision goggles. The article says the drone was last seen entering IMC at 14,000MSL while the helicopter's ADS-B track shows it reached 12,000MSL which means the helicopter could see the light at least 2,000 feet away, which suggests a bright light that should have been visible through light amplification.

It's more likely that the night vision device was either malfunctioning or pilot error made its use ineffective.

[toss1]

excellent point - I had a nagging thought about that, but just figured the LED had turned off when it started to evade?

But yes, NVD malfunction could be a possibility.

The other possibility is that it was and IR NVG, and the device is very well heat-shielded, which puts it in an entirely different class...