As quickly as I noticed missile I believed ‘they received me, my mission is over’

The F-117 Nighthawk seemed like a black dart with a V-shaped tail. The world’s first Stealth fighter, many branded it invisible and invincible. Its secret state-of-the-art coating of radar-absorbent materials, and angled airframe, made it onerous for an enemy radar to lock on to.

Yet flying his third mission of the Kosovo War, above Serbia on March 27, 1999, US flier Dale Zelko, name signal Vega 31, was in bother.

Opening the weapons bay to launch his two 2,000lb precision-guided bombs had diminished the plane’s stealth properties, and the $42million fighter had been captured on the radar of a surface-to-air missile unit commanded by Serbia’s Colonel Zoltán Dani.

Now two SA-3 missiles have been powering in the direction of the 40-year-old at 3 times the velocity of sound.

“Suddenly, down in my right four o’clock, there they were,” Dale recalled. “As soon as I saw them coming at me, I thought, ‘They got me. My mission is over’.” The first missile handed proper excessive of the Nighthawk. The second got here inside 140ft and its proximity fuse activated.

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“We watched it exploding on the screen as the warhead broke into 30,000 shards of jagged steel, ripping into the jet,” Colonel Dani stated.

Zelko’s plane had develop into the primary Stealth fighter ever to be shot down.

“I closed my eyes and turned my head, anticipating the impact,” Dale recalled. “I knew there would be a fireball and didn’t want to be blinded.

“The blast slammed into the aircraft like being hit by a train.

“A huge flash of light engulfed my jet, the left wing was blown off, sending the aircraft into a violent roll.”

The Nighthawk plummeted uncontrolled. “I realised I was unlikely to survive, but I didn’t have any fear,” Dale stated. “The next thing I recall
was being out of the aircraft, in the ejection seat and looking down.”

Just a couple of days earlier, the Stealth pilot had left Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, heading to conflict for the third time in 9 years. After 20 profitable missions in his F-117 throughout 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, Dale had returned to Iraq seven years later to fly extra bombing raids in opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Now he was leaving his household once more.

In the late Nineteen Nineties, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic had unleashed his forces on neighbouring Kosovo, driving 300,000 ethnic Albanians from their properties. When Serb troops crossed into Albania, Nato issued an ultimatum: get out of Kosovo by March 24 or face our wrath.

Tall, square-jawed and athletically constructed, Dale recalled: “It was an enormous honour to be chosen as a Stealth pilot – it was considered a special duty. I didn’t really think about dangers. I was just focused on doing the best job possible.”

The evening of March 27, the climate was so dangerous Nato had cancelled all airstrikes, besides one.

Eight F-117 Nighthawks have been to take out a closely defended navy facility close to Belgrade.

Dale ate his customary king-size bowl of cereal with dried cranberries, then went to equipment up. The atrocious climate prevented help from plane designed to jam, or assault, enemy surface-to-air missile methods.

More worryingly, the route they have been about to take had already been flown a number of occasions. “They say that the F-117 is invisible,” Zoltán had advised his males, “but it’s a marketing trick. No aircraft is completely invisible.”

Now the 9 males of his unit have been huddled round their screens in a command automobile 15 miles west of Belgrade. Their missiles have been aged Russian SA-3s. Twenty toes lengthy, weighing slightly below a ton, they carried a 32-pound warhead.

Loaded up with bombs, Zelko flew alongside the Romanian border in the direction of northern Yugoslavia.

As he approached the border, the acquainted wave of pre-combat concern washed over him as he turned a pointy proper into Serbia and hostile territory, heading east in the direction of Belgrade.

At 8.30pm Colonel Dani and his SAM crew received a warning intruders have been heading their approach.

They turned their radar methods east in the direction of Belgrade, protecting the Nighthawks’ suspected flight path. There was no signal. Zoltán advised his operator to modify off and wait a couple of seconds. Still nothing. Could he danger one other burst on the radar, with the danger of being detected and destroyed by a Nato anti-radiation missile?

“I ordered my team to try one final time.”

And when Dale opened his weapons bay, his plane’s profile appeared on Dani’s display.

“I saw him coming straight at us, entering our kill range. The only thing for me to say to my guys was, ‘Launch!’”

At 8.42pm the primary missile streaked away from the battery. Five seconds later, quantity two adopted. The Serbians watched the destruction of Dale’s plane on their screens. High above, immobilised by the unfavorable g-force of his doomed jet, Dale was desperately making an attempt to get to the ejection deal with on the aspect of his American ACES II ejection seat.

“I was thinking, ‘This is really, really, really bad. Chances are I’m going to break my neck, have massive back injuries if I even live’.”

Bizarrely, as we speak he has no reminiscence of reaching for and pulling the deal with. Yet one way or the other he did.

Two seconds later, he was below a totally inflated parachute. The clouds parted and there was a near-full moon. Looking proper, he noticed Belgrade, absolutely lit. To the south-west, there have been two fires – all that remained of his Nighthawk.

He began transmitting on the emergency frequency. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Vega 31.”

His radio crackled to life. It was a British airman. Someone knew he was down.

At about 2,000ft, floating below his cover, Dale handed by way of a band of cloud. There was a stiff breeze and he was drifting down in the direction of flat, open farmland. He steered his parachute in the direction of a freshly ploughed discipline not removed from the street.

Landing softly, he collapsed the parachute and lay immobile. He scooped up darkish Serbian soil and smeared his face, fingers and neck. He felt for his survival and evasion tools. Radio, flares, strobe mild. He took out his 9mm Beretta pistol and searching knife.

By now a significant rescue plan was in place. But lots of of troops, native civilians and dog-led search events have been combing the world, determined to catch the US pilot.

Around midnight he heard one thing transferring.

“Clearly silhouetted against the moon was some sort of massive hunting dog.”

Dale reached down slowly, feeling for his survival knife. The canine stopped about 20 yards away, precisely the place Dale had final been utilizing his satnav. It sniffed on the floor. “I figured he had my scent.” He crouched decrease, his coronary heart pounding.

“As he pawed at the undergrowth I was thinking, ‘How will I kill this dog if it starts barking?’

That wasn’t something he’d been taught during survival training. Dale stayed motionless, barely breathing. “The dog kept looking around. His gaze swept across me a couple of times.”

Finally, the beast misplaced curiosity and moved on.

By now, fewer than eight hours after his ejection, three US rescue helicopters have been hurtling in the direction of Dale simply 50ft off the bottom understanding 80 Serbian troops and police have been closing in on his place. Finally, aboard a chopper and leaving hostile airspace at 3.46am, Dale recalled: “Waves of relief washed over me.”

Twelve years later, in an astonishing twist, the 2 males can be united by a documentary maker. Dale travelled to Serbia in 2011 the place Zoltán now ran a bakery.

His former foe convulsed with laughter when ceremoniously introduced with a scale mannequin of an F-117 Nighthawk. Dale grinned: “Now try not to blow this one up, OK?”

• Adapted by Matt Nixson from Eject! Eject! by John Nichol (Simon & Schuster, £20). Visit expressbookshop.com or name 020 3176 3832 without cost UK P&P on orders over £25