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The Following Is From a Serbian Web Site

 

A Lost Illusion

 

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It's now official - Americans lost their pride and joy: at least one of USAF's stealthiest aircraft, the F-117A Night Hawk, is lost to Yugoslav anti-aircraft defenses. Russian Minister of Defense Igor Sergeyev announced that the stealthiest of the world's aircraft was brought down by two SA-6 surface-to-air missiles. Yugoslav Air Force officials said that the F-117 was also hit by one AAM launched from a MiG fighter aircraft. The downing of the "invisible" plane follows an announcement by NATO's command that they "feel comfortable" sending NATO pilots on low-altitude, low-speed missions over Yugoslavia, now that Yugoslav air defenses are "effectively suppressed." Pentagon now officially confirmed that the F-117A was tracked by an unidentified ground radar and that two SAMs were fired at the aircraft. First reports suggested that the F-117A might have been tracked by a Czech-made Tamara passive radar - three passive receivers, each mounted a truck. Yugoslavia operates such radars in a somewhat modified form. However, latest information suggest that the F-117A was tracked by an old Soviet radar - a mid-1950s radar operating in 165-190cm wavelength range. According to American aircraft designers and military, long-wave radars present a serious threat to stealth aircraft operated by the US.

     Civilian witnesses to the downing of the F-117A said that they observed SAMs being launched and anti-aircraft artillery being fired in the same direction from which shortly after a "ball of fire" appeared and crashed into the ground. This was a 45-million-dollar USAF F-117A. The American pilot ejected and, according to NATO, was picked up by friendly forces (perhaps a rescue team). NATO spokesperson said that the pilots is in good shape. I find this questionable, however, because NATO also claims to have no knowledge as to the details of the F-177's loss. This either means that these "unknown" details are very grim for NATO's immediate plans of low-altitude bombing, or that the pilot is not OK. In any case, I am glad that the pilot is alive and I am even happier that he wasn't picked up by Serb soldiers. ABC News has recently published the details of the rescue operation:

"...the rescue of the pilot of a stealth fighter jet downed northwest of Belgrade on Saturday was led by the Air Force using “Pavelow” and “Pavehawk” helicopters. The helicopters are specifically modified with global navigation systems and sophisticated radar allowing them to hug the terrain and avoid enemy detection.
    Once he parachuted to earth, the pilot most likely signaled his location with a handheld transmitter.
    The pilot was picked up by the smaller Pavehawk and flown back to his squadron at Aviano Air Base in Northern Italy.
     Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the jet’s downing wouldn’t affect the expanded attacks. A senior U.S. defense official said there are strong indications that the aircraft was hit by a surface-to-air missile."

     There is still some confusion in the press in regard to the model of SAM system that brought down the F-117A. Many American newspapers mistakenly call the system SA-3 (or even SA-7), while it was actually the SA-6 Kub self-propelled SAM system. This system has a triple-missile launcher (called among NATO pilots as "three fingers of death") mounted on a tracked chassis. Pentagon announced that the F-117A was indeed tracked by a Yugoslav ground radar and two SA-6 missiles were fired at the "invisible" aircraft. The doomed F-117A took off from the Aviano base in Italy, released its payload of precision bombs over Yugoslavia and was heading back to its base. The F-117A was detected by a ground radar and shot down by SAMs and probably by a AAA or a fighter aircraft, since there are bullet holes visible in the wing of the aircraft's wreck. The unidentified pilot ejected and landed some two miles away from the crash site. At 15:00 EST the pilot was reported missing and an USAF rescue team was dispatched on a HH-60G helicopter's protected by several NATO fighters. At 21:35 EST the pilot was picked up by the rescue team. At 21:52 EST the rescued pilot and the rescue team were out of Yugoslavia heading for the Aviano base in Italy.

     Soon after, Yugoslav television showed a video footage shot by the military on the scene of the Night Hawk's final landing. I was really enjoying an argument between two BBC reporters one of whom was claiming that a military aviation expert "determined" that the wreckage shown was that of F-15E strike aircraft. I know one expert like this... Interestingly enough, Adolph Clinton said he's "...tremendously proud of the skills of the pilot...", in reference to the pilot of the destroyed F-117. Perhaps now American aircraft should be expected to go down in packs, as other US pilots will be anxious to deserve their president's "tremendous pride."

     HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- Half a world away from the site in Yugoslavia where an American F-117 stealth bomber crashed, the flier's home base commander defended the warplane Sunday as a "premier weapon system," and vowed to send "a couple dozen more," if asked. "They are not invulnerable, they are not invisible, they are `low observable,'` the commander, Brig. Gen. William Lake, said at a news conference held here against the backdrop of a desert mesa. Rain was not a factor in the crash, said the commander of a base where pilots are accustomed to flying the cloudless blue skies of southern New Mexico. Asked if the kind of older radar used by Yugoslavia might have picked up the plane, he declined to answer. Although he described the jet as a top-secret plane, he said that NATO bombers have not returned to the site to destroy the wreckage.

     An official report by the Russian National News Service (03-28-99) indicated that a second F-117A was shot down shortly after. According to the report, Yugoslavs still haven't used their most advanced SAM systems, trying to save them until NATO resorts to low-altitude bombing strategy. In order to take out Serb tanks and artillery in Kosovo, NATO has no other choice but to send its ground strike aircraft on low-altitude, low-speed missions over Yugoslav army positions, well protected by advanced SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery. Serbs are also known to have a large number of modern man-portable SAM launchers that have proven to be exceptionally effective against low-flying aircraft in the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. NATO may also be forced to use Apache helicopters against Serb tanks. Americans currently have 24 AH-64D Apache helicopters stationed in Bosnia. Helicopters present a particularly easy target for portable SAMs.

     There is little question that a loss of the F-117A "stealth fighter" is a serious compromise of the aircraft's classified technology and, as a result, to F-117's effectiveness in the future. The wreckage of the plane will most certainly be analyzed by the Serbs and probably by the Russians as well. What information can possibly be extracted for a heavily burned wreck? Plenty, including the chemical composition of the materials used for the aircraft's construction and for its radar wave-absorbent coatings. I think that now it is entirely in Yugoslavia's interests to get the wreckage to Russia as soon as possible.

 

 

 

A Serb Discusses The 1999 Downing Of A Stealth F-117

The Following  Is An  Associated Press  Article Dated March 2005

 

SKORENOVAC, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) — Col. Zoltan Dani was behind one of the most spectacular losses ever suffered by the U.S. Air Force: the 1999 shooting down of an F-117A stealth fighter.

Now, for the first time since that night six years ago, the former Serbian commander of an anti-aircraft missile battery has consented to speak publicly to Western media about the circumstances surrounding the unprecedented downing of a U.S. stealth plane.

The hit on the radar-evading plane on March 27, 1999, during the 78-day NATO campaign over Serbia, triggered doubts not only about the F-117s, but also about the entire concept of stealth technology on which the U.S. Air Force has based its newest generation of warplanes.

Military analysts debated how the planes would fare in a war against a militarily sophisticated opponent if an obsolescent air defense such as Serbia's could manage to track and destroy them.

In an interview this week with The Associated Press, Dani said the F-117 was detected and shot down during a moonless night — just three days into the war — by a Soviet-made SA-3 Goa surface-to-air missile.

"We used a little innovation to update our 1960s-vintage SAMs to detect the Nighthawk," Dani said. He declined to discuss specifics, saying the exact nature of the modification to the warhead's guidance system remains a military secret.

It involved "electromagnetic waves," was all that Dani — who now owns a small bakery in this sleepy village just north of Belgrade — would divulge.

The F-117 was developed in great secrecy in the 1970s. It entered service in 1983 but was not revealed officially until 1988. It saw its first combat in the 1989 invasion of Panama and was a star of the 1991 Gulf War.

"Long before the 1999 war, I took keen interest in the stealth fighter and on how it could be detected," said Dani, who has been hailed in Serbia as a war hero. "And I concluded that there are no invisible aircraft, but only less visible."

The F-117 was one of only two allied aircraft shot down in the war. The other was an F-16 fighter, which the U.S. Air Force said was also hit by an SA-3. Both pilots bailed out and were rescued by NATO helicopters.

Dani said his anti-aircraft missile regiment, tasked with the anti-aircraft defense of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, downed the F-16.

Several other NATO warplanes were damaged by missile hits but managed to struggle back to bases in neighboring Bosnia, Macedonia or Croatia. At least one is said to have ditched into the Adriatic Sea as it attempted to regain its base in Italy.

Despite NATO's near-total air supremacy, the alliance never succeeded in knocking out Dani's batteries.

The Serb SAMs remained a potent threat throughout the conflict, forcing attacking warplanes to altitudes above 15,000 feet, where they were safe from surface-to-air missiles but far less effective in a ground attack role.

NATO won the war in June 1999, after President Slobodan Milosevic decided to withdraw his largely intact army from Kosovo, following the destruction of numerous government buildings, bridges and other infrastructure targets throughout Serbia.

"The Americans entered the war a bit overconfident," Dani said. "They thought they could crush us without real resistance."

"At times, they acted like amateurs," Dani said, listing some ways the Serbs managed to breach NATO communications security, including eavesdropping on pilots' conversations with AWACS surveillance planes.

"I personally listened to their pilots' conversations, learning about their routes and bombing plans," Dani said.

Dani said that his unit has had annual reunions on every March 27 since 1999 when a cake in the shape of the F-117 is served.

The Associated Press.

 

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