In addition to the destruction of one subsonic tactical stealth attack aircraft F-117 Nighthawk of the United States Air Force (Air Force) in Yugoslavia in March 1999, another similar aircraft was damaged in the same place a month later. The Drive tells about the confirmation of the second accident of this aircraft.
American edition, citing former F-117 Nighthawk pilot Charlie Heinlein, whose story can be hear in The Afterburn podcast, writes that the air missions of these aircraft requiring refueling, took about six hours, of which the flight over the former Yugoslavia took 30-45 minutes.
A pair of laser-guided bombs were housed in the internal compartments of the F-117 Nighthawk. The planes did not have their own means of detecting enemy air defense systems, as a result of which converted F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters were used to solve this problem.
On the night when the Serbs shot down the F-117 Nighthawk, there were two such aircraft in the sky over Yugoslavia at a distance of about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from each other. According to Heinlein, then the Serbs “used quite a lot of anti-aircraft artillery, and sometimes quite a lot of missiles.” “I kind of looked to the right over Belgrade and saw this huge approaching rocket that looks like Saturn V. I knew my second partner was out there somewhere. Then I see another launch – a big glow, and even from that distance you can see many details. A plume, outgoing smoke, and then this fireball approaching you, “- said the pilot.
According to Heinlein, then he could not understand whether the Serbian missile hit the plane of his partner. According to the instructions, the pilot left the F-117 Nighthawk on autopilot, dropped the bomb on a given target and flew to the KC-135 Stratotanker air tanker. “His plane was not in good shape,” Heinlein said about the F-117 Nighthawk of his partner, who later headed to the tanker.
In July 2019, F-117 Nighthawk was seen over Death Valley (California), performing, in the opinion of Combat Aircraft, the role of an enemy aircraft simulator. At the same time, commenting on Twitter material, The Drive noted that in reality speech can go about testing the airframe infrared suppression system.
The American company Lockheed Martin in 1983-1990 produced 64 units of F-117 Nighthawk subsonic tactical aircraft of various modifications. In April 2008, the aircraft were taken out of service by the US Air Force. Since then, the F-117 Nighthawk has been repeatedly seen in trials, the objectives of which were not disclosed to the military. Two such planes were shot down in Yugoslavia by the S-125 Pechora anti-aircraft missile system (the first plane crashed, the second managed to return to the base).