U-2 Crisis of 1960 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

on May 1, 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

and during the leadership of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

, when a United States U-2

Lockheed U-2

The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...

spy plane

Surveillance aircraft

A surveillance aircraft is an aircraft used for surveillance — collecting information over time. They are operated by military forces and other government agencies in roles such as intelligence gathering, battlefield surveillance, airspace surveillance, observation , border patrol and fishery...

was shot down over the airspace

Airspace

Airspace means the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere....

of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

The United States government at first denied the plane's purpose and mission, but then was forced to admit its role as a covert surveillance

Surveillance

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...

aircraft when the Soviet government produced its intact remains and surviving pilot, Francis Gary Powers, as well as photos of military bases in Russia taken by Gary Powers. Coming roughly two weeks before the scheduled opening of an East–West summit in Paris, the incident was a great embarrassment to the United States and prompted a marked deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union.

Background

In July 1957, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

requested permission from Pakistani Prime Minister Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy for the U.S. to establish a secret intelligence facility in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

and for the U-2

Lockheed U-2

spyplane to fly from Pakistan. A facility established in Badaber

Badaber

Badaber is a village in Peshawar District, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Pakistan.It is situated on Kohat road, and some 10 kilometers away from the main Peshawar city. It is the location of the Badaber refugee camp and jail, established in February 1980, which was the site of the famous Badaber Uprising,...

(Peshawar Air Station

Peshawar Air Station

Peshawar Air Station is a former United States Air Force Security Service listening post, used by the 6937th Communications Group from 1958 until January 7, 1970, when the facility was formally closed...

), 10 miles (16.1 km) from Peshawar

Peshawar

Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....

, was a cover for a major communications intercept operation run by the United States National Security Agency

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

(NSA). Badaber was an excellent location because of its proximity to Soviet central Asia. This enabled the monitoring of missile test sites, key infrastructure and communications. The U-2 "spy-in-the-sky" was allowed to use the Pakistan Air Force portion of Peshawar Airport

Peshawar International Airport

Peshawar International Airport is an airport located in the city of Peshawar in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Located about a 10-minute drive from the centre of Peshawar, it is the fourth busiest airport in Pakistan...

to gain vital photo intelligence in an era before satellite observation.

On April 9, 1960, a U-2C spyplane of the special Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

(CIA) unit "10-10," piloted by Bob Ericson, crossed the southern national boundary of the Soviet Union in the area of Pamir Mountains

Pamir Mountains

The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains and since Victorian times they have been known as the "Roof of the World" a probable...

and flew over four Soviet top secret military objects: the Semipalatinsk Test Site

Semipalatinsk Test Site

The Semipalatinsk Test Site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located on the steppe in northeast Kazakhstan , south of the valley of the Irtysh River...

, the Dolon Air Base

Dolon (air base)

Dolon is an air base in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan that served as a major Cold War bomber base with significant tarmac space and over 50 revetments. Dolon Southwest, a former airfield 32 km to the south, no longer exists.In 1955, Dolon was one of only six Soviet bases capable of handling the...

where Tu-95

Tupolev Tu-95

The Tupolev Tu-95 is a large, four-engine turboprop-powered strategic bomber and missile platform. First flown in 1952, the Tu-95 entered service with the former Soviet Union in 1956 and is expected to serve the Russian Air Force until at least 2040...

strategic bombers were stationed, the Surface-to-Air Missile

Surface-to-air missile

A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...

(SAM) test site of the Soviet Air Defence Forces near Saryshagan, and the Tyuratam

Tyuratam

Tyuratam is a station on the main Moscow to Tashkent railway, located in Kazakhstan. The name is a word in the Kazakh language and means "Töre's grave"; Töre, or more formally, Töre-Baba, was a noble, a descendant of Genghis Khan...

missile range (Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur Cosmodrome

The Baikonur Cosmodrome , also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level...

). The plane was detected by the Soviet Air Defense Forces at 4:47 when it had flown more than 250 km over the Soviet national boundary and avoided several attempts at interception by MiG-19 and Su-9 during the flight. The U-2 left Soviet air space at 11:32 and landed at an Iranian airstrip at Zahedan. It was clear that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had successfully performed an extraordinary intelligence operation. In spite of the negative USSR diplomatic reaction, the next flight of the U-2 spyplane from Peshawar airport was planned to take place on April 29.

The event

On April 28, a U.S. Lockheed U-2

Lockheed U-2

C spy plane, Article 358, was ferried from Incirlik Air Base

Incirlik Air Base

The Incirlik Air Base is located in İncirlik, five miles east of Adana, Turkey's fifth largest city, and from the Mediterranean Sea.The U.S...

in Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

to the US base at Peshawar airport by pilot Glen Dunaway. Fuel for the aircraft had been ferried to Peshawar

Peshawar

Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....

the previous day in a US Air Force C-124 transport. A US Air Force C-130 followed, carrying the ground crew, mission pilot Francis Gary Powers and the back up pilot, Bob Ericson. On the morning of April 29, the crew in Badaber

Badaber

was informed that the mission had been delayed one day. As a result, Bob Ericson flew Article 358 back to Incirlik and John Shinn ferried U-2C Article 360 from Incirlik to Peshawar. On April 30, the mission was delayed one day further because of bad weather over the Soviet Union.

The weather improved and on May 1, fifteen days before the scheduled opening of an East–West summit conference in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, captain Francis Gary Powers, flying Article 360, 56-6693 left the US base in Peshawar on a mission with the operations code word GRAND SLAM to overfly the Soviet Union, photographing ICBM

Intercontinental ballistic missile

An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...

sites in and around Sverdlovsk

Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg is a major city in the central part of Russia, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the Ural mountain range, it is the main industrial and cultural center of the Urals Federal District with a population of 1,350,136 , making it Russia's...

and Plesetsk

Plesetsk

Plesetsk is an urban locality Plesetsk is an urban locality Plesetsk is an urban locality (a work settlement and the administrative center of Plesetsky District, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated about northeast of Moscow and south of Arkhangelsk. Municipally, it is the administrative...

, then land at Bodø

Bodø

is a city and a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Salten region.The city of Bodø was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 . Bodin was merged with Bodø on 1 January 1968. Skjerstad was merged with Bodø on 1 January 2005...

in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. All units of the Soviet Air Defence Forces in the Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

, Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

, Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, Ural

Ural (region)

Ural is a geographical region located around the Ural Mountains, between the East European and West Siberian plains. It extends approximately from north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the bend of Ural River near Orsk city. The boundary between Europe and Asia runs along the eastern side of...

and later in the U.S.S.R. European Region and Extreme North

Extreme North (Russia)

The Extreme North or Far North is a large part of Russia located mainly north of the Arctic Circle and boasting enormous mineral and natural resources....

were on red alert, and the U-2 flight was expected. Soon after the plane was detected, Lieutenant General of the Air Force Yevgeniy Savitskiy

Yevgeniy Savitskiy

Yevgeniy Yakovlevich Savitzky was a World War II fighter ace, 22 individual and 2 group victories, Commanding General of Aviation of the Air Defense Forces of the Country, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of Aviation...

ordered the air-unit commanders "to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane's course, and to ram

Ramming

In warfare, ramming is a technique that was used in air, sea and land combat. The term originated from battering ram, a siege weapon used to bring down fortifications by hitting it with the force of the ram's momentum...

if necessary".

Because of the U-2's extreme operating altitude, Soviet attempts to intercept the plane using fighter aircraft failed. The U-2's course was out of range of several of the nearest SAM sites, and one SAM site even failed to engage the aircraft since it was not on duty that day. The U-2 was eventually brought down near Degtyarsk

Degtyarsk

Degtyarsk is a town under the administrative jurisdiction of the Town of Revda in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Vyazovka River , west of Yekaterinburg...

, Ural

Ural (region)

Region, by the first of three SA-2 Guideline (S-75 Dvina)

S-75 Dvina

The S-75 Dvina is a Soviet-designed, high-altitude, command guided, surface-to-air missile system...

surface-to-air missiles fired by a battery commanded by Mikhail Voronov. In bailing out, the plane's pilot, Francis Gary Powers, neglected to disconnect his oxygen hose and struggled with it until it broke, enabling him to separate from the aircraft. He successfully bailed out and parachuted to safety. He was captured soon after parachuting down onto Russian soil. Powers carried with him a modified silver dollar which contained a lethal, shellfish-derived saxitoxin

Saxitoxin

Saxitoxin is a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain species of marine dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria Saxitoxin (STX) is a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain species of marine dinoflagellates (Alexandrium sp., Gymnodinium sp., Pyrodinium sp.) and cyanobacteria Saxitoxin (STX) is a...

-tipped needle, but did not use it.

The SAM command center was unaware that the plane was destroyed for more than 30 minutes. One of the Soviet MiG-19 fighters pursuing Powers, piloted by Sergei Safronov, was also destroyed in the missile salvo. The MiGs' IFF

Identification friend or foe

In telecommunications, identification, friend or foe is an identification system designed for command and control. It is a system that enables military and national interrogation systems to identify aircraft, vehicles, or forces as friendly and to determine their bearing and range from the...

transponders were not yet switched to the new May codes because of the May 1st holiday

May Day

May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....

.

A close study of Powers' account of the flight shows that one of the last targets he had overflown was the Chelyabinsk-65 plutonium production facility. From photographs of the facility, the heat rejection capacity of the reactors' cooling systems could have been estimated, thus allowing a calculation of the power output of the reactors. This then would have allowed the amount of plutonium being produced to be determined, thus allowing analysts to determine how many nuclear weapons the USSR was producing.

American cover-up and exposure

Four days after Powers disappeared, NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

issued a very detailed press release noting that an aircraft had "gone missing" north of Turkey. The press release speculated that the pilot might have fallen unconscious while the autopilot

Autopilot

An autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. An autopilot can refer specifically to aircraft, self-steering gear for boats, or auto guidance of space craft and missiles...

was still engaged, even falsely claiming that "the pilot reported over the emergency frequency that he was experiencing oxygen difficulties." To bolster this, a U-2 plane was quickly painted in NASA colors and shown to the media.

After learning of this, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

announced to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and thus the world, that a "spyplane" had been shot down but intentionally made no reference to the pilot. As a result, the Eisenhower Administration, thinking the pilot had died in the crash, authorized the release of a cover story claiming that the plane was a "weather research aircraft" which had strayed into Soviet airspace after the pilot had radioed "difficulties with his oxygen equipment" while flying over Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. The Eisenhower White House acknowledged that this might be the same plane, but still proclaimed that "there was absolutely no deliberate attempt to violate Soviet airspace and never has been", and attempted to continue the facade by grounding all U-2 aircraft to check for "oxygen problems."

On May 7, Khrushchev sprang his trap and announced:

Not only was Powers still alive, but his plane was also largely intact. The Soviets recovered the surveillance camera and even developed some of the photographs. The incident resulted in great humiliation for Eisenhower's administration, caught in a lie.

Powers’ survival pack, including 7500 rubles

Soviet ruble

The Soviet ruble or rouble was the currency of the Soviet Union. One ruble is divided into 100 kopeks, ....

and jewelry for women, was also recovered. Today a large part of the wreck as well as many items from the survival pack are on display at the Central Armed Forces Museum

Central Armed Forces Museum

The Central Armed Forces Museum also known as the Museum of the Soviet Army, is located in northern Moscow near the Red Army Theater.-History:...

in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. A small piece of the plane was returned to the United States and is on display at the National Cryptologic Museum

National Cryptologic Museum

The National Cryptologic Museum is an American museum of cryptologic history that is affiliated with the National Security Agency . The first public museum in the U.S. Intelligence Community, NCM is located in the former Colony Seven Motel, just two blocks from the NSA headquarters at Fort...

Aftermath

The Four Power Paris Summit between president Dwight Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

, Harold Macmillan

Harold Macmillan

Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

and Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

collapsed, in large part because Eisenhower refused to accede to Khrushchev's demands that he apologize for the incident. Khrushchev left the talks on May 16.

The Soviet Union convened a meeting of the United Nations Security Council

United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...

on May 23 to tell their side of the story. The meetings continued for four days with other allegations of spying being exchanged, as well as recriminations over the Paris Summit, and a US offer of an "open skies" proposal to allow reciprocal flights over one another's territory, at the end of which the Soviet Union overwhelmingly lost a vote on a concise resolution which would have condemned the incursions and requested the US to prevent their recurrence.

Powers pleaded guilty and was convicted of espionage on August 19 and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and 7 years of hard labor

Hard Labor

Hard Labor is the eleventh album by American rock band Three Dog Night, released in 1974 .- Cover Artwork :The original album cover, depicting of the birth of a record album , was deemed too controversial and was soon reworked with a huge bandage covering the "birth". The cover also includes an...

. He served one year and nine months of the sentence before being exchanged for Rudolf Abel

Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher

Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was a noted Soviet intelligence officer...

on February 10, 1962. The exchange occurred on the Glienicke Bridge

Glienicke bridge

The Glienicke bridge is a bridge on the edge of Berlin that spans the Havel River to connect the cities of Potsdam and Berlin near Klein Glienicke...

connecting Potsdam

Potsdam

Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

, East Germany, to West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

.

As it was now readily apparent that even high-altitude spy planes were vulnerable to missiles, the U.S. Corona

Corona (satellite)

The Corona program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force...

spy satellite project was accelerated. The CIA also accelerated the development of the A–12 OXCART

A-12 OXCART

The Lockheed A-12 was a reconnaissance aircraft built for the Central Intelligence Agency by Lockheed's famed Skunk Works, based on the designs of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. The A-12 was produced from 1962 through 1964, and was in operation from 1963 until 1968. The single-seat design, which first...

supersonic spyplane that first flew in 1962 and began developing the Lockheed D-21/M-21

Lockheed D-21/M-21

The Lockheed D-21 was an American Mach 3+ reconnaissance drone. The D-21 was initially designed to be launched from the back of its M-21 carrier aircraft, a variant of the Lockheed A-12 aircraft. Development began in October 1962...

unmanned drone.

The incident severely compromised Pakistan's security and worsened relations between the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Pakistan

Pakistan

. As an attempt to put up a bold front, Pakistani General Khalid Mahmud Arif while commenting on the incident stated that, "Pakistan felt deceived because the US had kept her in the dark about such clandestine spy operations launched from Pakistan’s territory." The communications wing at Badaber was formally closed down on January 7, 1970.

Later versions

The original consensus about the cause of the U-2 incident was that the spy plane had been shot down by one of a salvo of fourteen Soviet SA-2 missiles. This story was originated by Oleg Penkovsky

Oleg Penkovsky

Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed HERO ; April 23, 1919, Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, Soviet Russia, – May 16, 1963, Soviet Union), was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence in the late 1950s and early 1960s who informed the United Kingdom and the United States about the Soviet Union...

, a GRU

GRU

GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

agent who spied for MI6

Secret Intelligence Service

The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...

. In 2010, CIA documents were released indicating that "top US officials never believed Powers’ account of his fateful flight because it appeared to be directly contradicted by a report from the National Security Agency" which alleged that the U2 has descended from 65,000 to 34,000 feet before changing course and disappearing from radar. One contemporary reading of the NSA's story is that they mistakenly tracked the descent of an MiG-19 piloted by Sr. Lt. Sergei Safronov.

A hearsay version exists saying that a soviet spy in the aircraft maintenance magnetized a screw by repeatedly rubbing it with a magnet which made the aircraft show the wrong readings hence the descent to a lower altitude in the SAM's range.

Igor Mentyukov

In 1996, Soviet pilot Captain Igor Mentyukov claimed that, at 65,000 feet (19,812 meters) altitude, under orders to ram the intruder, he had caught the U-2 in the slipstream

Slipstream

A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid is moving at velocities comparable to the moving object . The term slipstream also applies to the similar region adjacent to an object with a fluid moving around it...

of his unarmed Sukhoi Su-9, causing the U-2 to flip over and break its wings. The salvo of rockets had indeed scored a hit, downing a pursuing MiG-19

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 is a Soviet second-generation, single-seat, twin jet-engined fighter aircraft. It was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic speeds in level flight. A comparable U.S...

, not the U-2. Mentyukov said that if a rocket had hit the U-2, its pilot would not have lived.

Though the normal Su-9 service ceiling was 55,000 feet (16,760 meters), Mentyukov's aircraft had been modified to achieve higher altitudes, having its weapons removed. With no weapons, the only attack option open to him was ramming

Aerial ramming

Aerial ramming or air ramming is a last-ditch tactic in air combat, sometimes used when all else has failed. Long before the invention of aircraft, ramming tactics in naval warfare and ground warfare were common...

. Mentyukov asserted that Soviet generals concealed these facts to avoid challenging Nikita Khrushchev's faith in the efficacy of Soviet air defenses.

Sergei Khrushchev

In 2000, Sergei Khrushchev

Sergei Khrushchev

Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev , son of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, now resides in the United States where he is a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.-Career:...

wrote about the experience of his father, Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

, in the incident. He described how Mentyukov attempted to intercept the U-2, but failed to gain visual contact. Major Mikhail Voronov, in control of a battery of anti-aircraft missiles, fired three SA-2s at the radar contact but only one ignited. It quickly rose toward the target and exploded in the air behind the U-2 but near enough to violently shake the aircraft, tearing off its long wings. At a lower altitude, Powers climbed out of the falling fuselage and parachuted to the ground. Uncertainty about the initial shootdown success resulted in thirteen further anti-aircraft missiles being fired by neighboring batteries, but the later rockets only hit a pursuing MiG-19 piloted by Sr. Lt. Sergei Safronov, mortally wounding him. Sergei Safronov was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner

Order of the Red Banner

The Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...

External links

The U-2 airplane incident, according to the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
1962 Russia frees US spy plane pilot
Chelyabinsk-65/Ozersk
The U-2 Spy Plane Incident - slideshow by Life magazine
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum - contains a number of artifacts and documents relating to the U-2 incident
"The CIA and the U-2 Program" (1998) - Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background

The event

American cover-up and exposure

Aftermath

Later versions

Igor Mentyukov

Sergei Khrushchev

See also

Further reading

External links