It was supposed to be a routine mission for U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Darrell P. Zelko, a veteran pilot of the 1991 Gulf War. The weather over the capital city of Serbia was stormy on the night of March 27th, 1999, and only a few NATO planes were in the sky to enforce Operation Allied Force. Zelco was to drop 2 laser guided munitions and get back to his base in Italy.
There was no way for him to know that at exactly 8:15pm local time, a young Colonel of the Army of Yugoslavia had done what was thought to be impossible. His men had seen Zelco’s unseeable F117 Stealth Fighter.
Seconds later, a barrage of Soviet 60’s era S-125 surface-to-air missiles were screaming toward him at three times the speed of sound. One hit. Colonel Zelco was forced to eject while his advanced stealth aircraft fell to the ground in a ball of fire. It was the first and only time an F117 had been shot down. He would be rescued a few hours later.
How did they do it? How could a relatively unsophisticated army using outdated soviet technology take down one of the most advanced war planes in the world? A plane that was supposed be invisible to enemy radar? As you can imagine, there are several theories. We’re going deep with the “what-ifs” on this one so join us after the break as we break down and explore them in detail.
Theory 1 – Lucky Shot
The Serbian Army was monitoring US and NATO UHF and VHF communications, which were oddly enough unencrypted. This combined with the fact that the stealth fighters were using the same entry and egress routes means they could have worked out the general area of where they were going to be and when they were going to be there.
Theory 2 – Radar Hack
It has been theorized that they modified the antiquated soviet radars to operate at longer wavelengths. So when the bomb bay doors opened, they could see the aircraft. But using a longer wavelength would have required modification to the radar antenna. Such modifications are not easy to pull off, and would require advanced test equipment and knowledge. Is it possible to do this in the field with no testing or equipment?
Theory 3 – The Invisible Man in the Rain
Imagine Harry Potter had donned his invisibility cloak and was making his way out of the castle, when it started raining. Though other wizards and witches might not be able to see Harry directly, they would be able to see a disturbance in the rain. Want to see something invisible? Provide a medium and look for the disturbance within it.
It has been speculated that Colonel Dani tapped into the country’s cell phone network then looked for, found and targeted such a disturbance. But how would they pull this off? Would a stealth fighter, or any plane cause a visible disturbance in the RF field? If so, how do you detect it?
Theory 4 – Your Turn
How would you detect a stealth aircraft?
i was young then , but i remember that on my country on the news the said , that the found the stealth from a disturb on the television channels when it came to bomb andthe wait it to happen again. after that the bomb down the central tv center. check this story
To you guys suggesting “they just took a lucky shot”, you are out of your mind. It’s hard enough to shoot a bird at 100 feet with a gun. To think they shot a plane thousands of feet in the air with only 3 missiles is delusional. You could fire thousands of missiles in the sky and never hit anything, even a helicopter at altitude, much much less a jet with hundred of mph of horizontal speed.
Ahh you fucking americans. So stupid and lost that plane from old equipment. Go fuck yourselves
I think given the wealth of into out there on this incident, it’s pretty clear that it was a combination if factors (as it always is) that lead to the downing of this bird. The NATO brass drastically underestimated their opponents & therefore allowed multiple INCREDIBLY hazardous risks to be taken. The F-117s being allowed to continue w their mission even though their electronic countermeasure escorts were grounded was one, the failure to deviate from previous flight paths another, & the use of unencrypted comma was probably the most egregious.
The Serbs have publicly admitted that they knew the flight oaths ahead if time & placed spotters w night vision & binoculars in the ground to give the radar operators a heads up. The radar operators have publicly stated that they intentionally set their systems to the longest possible frequency in hopes of spotting a stealth aircraft. They had received scattered intermittent returns from previous stealth sorties they had been monitoring, & had set their minds on trying to bring one (or more) down the next time they found a formation in one of the already known flight paths. So the ground based spotters did give them a heads up that night on a formation coming in on a well known generic flight path, the pre-set radar with the long wavelength did get some returns from the expected area (most likely enhanced when the doors opened up for bomb release) which gave them a very good idea of when & where the planes would be for a best guess salvo of missiles. The pilot if the F-117 that went down said that the first missile flew right over the top of him without detonating from a proximity indication, which would tend to indicate that they were set to detonate either at a particular altitude & area or were manually detonated by someone at whatever moment they calculated most likely to produce a hit.
The idea that the radar had been modified I find unlikely, as it was already a long wavelength radar. And why risk damaging an old piece of equipment that is in working order when getting replacement parts is either unlikely or impossible? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I find it more likely that they simply set the equipment to its maximum possible output & sensitivity for the longest possible frequency.
The idea that a B-2 was also shot down is patently ridiculous, & to anyone who seriously believes that it happened, I’ve got some prime ocean front property in Oklahoma that I’d love to sell you. First of all, the footage of thrilled Serbs dancing around the wreckage of the F-117 was on CNN the next day. A B-2 would be a MUCH bigger prize than an F-117. If they had brought one down they most certainly would have made it known. Second, there are very few B-2s in America’s inventory, 22 if memory serves. It would be impossible to lose one without any country with a sattelite program noticing, as both Whiteman & Guam (the only bases B-2s fly from) are constantly monitored by every country with sattelite capability. And third, B-2 pilots have families who know that they are B-2 pilots. I’m just guessing here, but something tells me they might notice if daddy never came home again. This claim is utterly ridiculous, and worthy only of Alex Jones type conspiracy theorists.
So calling it a “lucky” shot is right and it’s wrong. Was there a definite degree of very good luck for the particular missile that brought down the F-117? Absolutely yes. But it was by no means luck alone. The Serbs showed a great deal of ingenuity & determination in taking advantage of the mistakes made by the NATO forces. So yes, it was definitely a lucky shot that brought that plane down, they never managed to bring down any other stealthy aircraft before or after. But they also played a big role in creating their own luck by deploying all the tactics they used to make that “lucky” shot possible in the first place.
It is very easy to spot a stealth jet flying overhead; the star field behind the jet is blanked out by the jet. A super-advanced super-computer directed electro-optical detection grid would easily be able to spot stealth jets this way, but they did not have advanced tech like that back then. Most likely the old tech radar had a long enough radar wavelength for ‘some’ signals to be bounced back, giving a faint signal once every so often. Then when the bomb bay doors opened, the signal got strong enough for a firm position and they fired a salvo ahead of the jet in hopes of hitting something.
I heard of this story here in Austria soon after the incident, and it was told very quickly:
Some guy was posted near the air base in Italy, and just called via telephone when the F117 took off, an then some other guys spotted them on the well known paths) they would usually take. At the right time the rockets would be launched in the right direction, catching whatever low radar cross section or heat signature (unclear at that time) they would find – done.
Clever organisation beats technology.