(Image: Federal Aviation Administration, public domain)
It’s never a good thing when a country’s most classified aircraft are shot down or crash, both in terms of international relations and the danger of cutting-edge technology falling into the wrong hands. But it’s been a reality of aviation, war and technology demonstration for decades, facilitating complex – and often implausible – cover stories irrespective of whether a plane crashed to earth in friendly or enemy territory. These ill-fated machines – several of which were still black projects at the time of their demise – likely only represent a small number of top secret US aircraft that have crashed over the past 60 years.
Lockheed U-2 ‘Dragon Lady’, China
(Images: via Photobucket; radio53, reproduced with permission)
A product of the legendary Lockheed Skunk Works, the U-2 entered service in 1957 as a high altitude, highly classified reconnaissance aircraft. Designed to fly at an altitude beyond the reach of Soviet-built fighters and missiles, the existence of this Cold War icon of the spying game remained secret for only three years, when CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Russia in May 1960. Following the infamous and rather embarrassing ‘U-2 Incident’, five more Dragon Lady’s were downed over mainland China. Four of these aircraft – operated by a CIA-sponsored Taiwanese unit called the Black Cat Squadron – survived remarkably intact and were soon displayed in Peking. So not only was the cat out of the bag, but the U-2 clearly wasn’t beyond the range of surface to air missiles. The time had come for a higher, faster and altogether more sinister spyplane. One of the downed U-2s can now be seen at the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in Beijing.
Lockheed A-12 Oxcart, Utah
(Images: CIA via Pangloss Films and National Geographic)
The distinctive shape of the Lockheed A-12 spyplane – forerunner to the famous SR-71 Blackbird – is plain to see in these declassified CIA photographs. This A-12 crashed near Wendover, Utah in 1963 after entering an unrecoverable flat spin. Fortunately pilot Ken Collins managed to eject safely. He then successfully deterred several locals, who had come to his aid with the canopy of the shadowy A-12 on the back of their pickup, from the crash site by telling them the wreck was that of an F-105 Thunderchief with a nuclear weapon onboard. That same day, the CIA administered sodium pentothal to ensure Collins had divulged every last detail of the incident. When the men in black later carried him home, still heavily under the drug’s influence, Collins’ wife angrily assumed he’d been out drinking all day with his friends. Several decades later, the retired A-12 pilot was finally able to reveal the truth! The images reveal the extent of the clean-up operation, though X-Plane hunter Peter Merlin continues to find components of the crashed A-12 at the remote site to this day.
F-117 Nighthawk (Stealth Fighter), Kosovo
(Photos courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists (fas.org)
Over the years, several F-117 Nighthawks have crashed in training accidents – several while the aircraft was still a black project with the sad loss of their pilots – but only one Stealth Fighter was downed by enemy fire during a combat mission. The aircraft in question, number 82-0806, was destroyed by a surface to air missile on March 27, 1999 during the Kosovo War. The pilot, Lt. Col. Dale Zelko, ejected safely and was rescued by US forces. Nighthawk 82-0806 impacted the ground in an inverted position at low speed and, unfortunately for the US government, remained relatively intact. Russian personnel were allegedly permitted to inspect the wreckage, which may have aided in the development of low observable materials employed in current generations of Russian and Chinese stealth aircraft. Others, however, played down such rumours on the grounds that the F-117′s stealth technology was already 20-year-old at the time of the crash.
(Image: Zelko has since met Colonel Zoltán Dani – the Yugoslav Army commander of the missile battery that shot him down – and the pair have reportedly become friends. Dani now works as a baker in his native village Skorenovac. Parts of Zelko’s Nighhawk, meanwhile, can be seen on public display at the Museum of Aviation in Belgrade.
B-2 Spirit (Stealth Bomber), Guam
(Image: Federal Aviation Administration, public domain)
While Northrop Grumman’s massive B-2 Spirit flying wing began life as a black project under the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) programme of the late 1970s, the production aircraft was acknowledged early on. Even so, the configuration of the aircraft’s trailing edges remained classified at its rollout ceremony. Reporters were permitted to view the Stealth Bomber from the front only, though some savvy journos found a work-around and photographed it from the air! Even with a replacement Next Generation Bomber (NGB) supposedly in the pipeline, aspects of the B-2′s design remain firmly under wraps, which in part explains the aircraft’s monumental price tag at $2 billion a piece. So when B-2 89-0127, named the Spirit of Kansas, crashed on takeoff at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, it immediately became the most expensive accident in USAF history. The crash was determined to have been caused by moisture in the port transducer units which resulted in the distortion of information sent to the aircraft’s air data system. The B-2′s flight control computers calculated an incorrect air speed and angle of attack, causing the nose to pitch-up 30 degrees and sending the aircraft into an unrecoverable stall. Thankfully the pilots ejected safely, though the Spirit of Kansas was reduced to a $1.4 billion pile of burning wreckage.
Stealth Helicopter (Likely a Modified MH-60 Black Hawk), Pakistan
(Image: YouTube screenshot via Aviation Explorer)
Various studies have been carried out over the years seeking to the solve the problem of how to make helicopters less observable, from fully fledged stealth choppers like the RAH-66 Comanche (pictured below) to existing designs treated to a low observable makeover and efforts to reduce the noise of their rotor blades. But like many stealth programmes, development of a low observable helicopter has proven challenging and the Comanche, cancelled due to its spiraling cost, never made it beyond the prototype phase.
(Image: US Army, public domain)
But just when the general public was none-the-wiser, along came Operation Neptune Spear – the storming of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by the US Navy’s SEAL Team Six. Using what are thought to be heavily modified MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters provided by a special ops unit known as the Night Stalkers, the SEAL team was able fly undetected deep into Pakistani territory. But the modifications to render the machine quieter and less visible to radar, combined with higher than expected air temperatures and high compound walls, caused a severe loss of lift known as the Vortex Ring State. When the tail boom grazed the wall, the pilot was forced to bury the nose into the dirt to prevent the chopper from tipping over. Nobody was seriously hurt in the accident, but efforts to destroy the aircraft were only partially successful. The tail boom, revealing stealthy mods and noise-reducing rotor blades, remained intact.
(Image: US Navy, public domain; above: an MH-60 Black Hawk)
Local children were seen selling pieces of wreckage as souvenirs and although the tail boom was ultimately returned to the US, unconfirmed reports suggest that it may have been inspected by Chinese officials interested in the radar absorbing paint. Three years later the stealth helicopter remains something of a mystery, though serial numbers found at the scene match those of an MH-60 Black Hawk built in 2009.
RQ-170 Sentinel (The Beast of Kandahar), Iran
(Image: Presstv.com via YouTube)
Another product of the enigmatic Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, the RQ-170 Sentinel was dubbed the ‘Beast of Kandahar‘ by Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman following sightings of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over Afghanistan before it was publicly acknowledged by the US government. Operated by the US Air Force on behalf of the CIA, detailed specifications of the stealthy, single engine drone remain highly classified. Officially based at the shadowy Tonopah Test Range Airport in Nevada, the reconnaissance UAVs are known to have operated over Abbottabad, Pakistan, during the bin Laden raid, beaming real-time footage of the assault back to President Obama and his advisers in the White House Situation Room.
(Images: MSNBC via YouTube; Presstv.com via YouTube)
But it was in late 2011 during alleged surveillance missions over Iran, that the RQ-170 made the mainstream headlines. Iranian media claimed that the country’s electronic warfare unit had captured a lightly damaged UAV that had violated its airspace. The US admitted losing an undisclosed type of drone near Iranian airspace and later acknowledged that it belonged to the CIA. But doubt has been cast over the authenticity of the alleged RQ-170 shown on Iranian television due to its remarkably intact condition. Some US officials have reportedly confirmed the downed drone was genuine, while others have expressed doubt. Iran, meanwhile, claims to have reversed engineered its technology and built its own version, which again is subject to doubt, even if this Beast of Kandahar was indeed the real deal.
