This Super-Advanced Stealth Jet Was Flying Over Serbia When Suddenly A Missile Struck From Nowhere

The targeting of the F-117 likely caused some initial confusion. After all, everything from the United States Air Force (USAF) plane’s angular shape to its built-in features was deliberately designed to deflect radar detection. But, as it transpired, Zelko’s craft wouldn’t be able to zip across Serbian skies unseen that night.

That’s because Serbian commander Zoltan Dani had come up with an ingenious method to try and pinpoint the untraceable F-117. It was a tactic the Americans had long fought to ensure wouldn’t be possible – but it suddenly made the hitherto-untouchable target vulnerable. And thus began one of the most unbelievable stories of Operation Allied Force.

The F-117 itself is a marvel of creation. The craft – also known as the Nighthawk – started life as a commission from the USAF. The organization was looking to add a stealth aircraft to its hangar – but this was no easy task. So it contacted the Lockheed Corporation (now under the umbrella of the Lockheed Martin Corporation) to get the job done.

It’s important to understand that this was a revolutionary idea at the time. In fact, the F-117 commission was the first of its kind upon delivery in 1982. So what was the USAF looking for? Well, it specifically envisioned an aircraft with the ability to fly without detection on radar. So Lockheed began to design a prototype with this feature at its center.

Although it’s unclear when Lockheed embarked on the monumental task of designing the F-117, the first record of the military’s desire for a stealth aircraft appeared in 1974. This was when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense, described exactly the type of plane that the F-117 would become.

For the aircraft to avoid radar detection, then, it would have to meet a very specific set of criteria. For instance, engineers had to come up with a plane that gave off very little light, infrared or radio energy. These frequencies would otherwise show up on radar – and give away the position of the stealth jet.

Turning a hypothetical boffins’ wish-list of attributes into something as tangible as the F-117 was easier said than done, though. The development process even saw multiple Lockheed prototypes crash to the ground. But the firm eventually designed something that worked as envisioned – and in 1982 it delivered the first operational stealth aircraft to the USAF.

The completed F-117 has a unique design, with each element serving to help the plane fly undetected by radar. Firstly, the stealth aircraft has a triangular shape with wings that whip back from the nose at a sharp 67-degree angle. Its flat exterior has an important purpose, too: it can deflect radar waves sent its way.

The shape of the F-117 is only one of the radar-avoiding techniques built into the aircraft, though. It also has a pair of General Electric turbofan engines, which power the jet without afterburners. In other words, the engines fire the aircraft to subsonic speeds without releasing any infrared emissions.

And inside the F-117, pilots can fly with infrared sensors, digital maps, inertial guidance and satellite-sent radio signals. These navigational tools replaced conventional internal radar systems – preventing the aircraft from appearing on other radar detectors. The designers brushed the outside of the stealth jet with a coating that can deflect detection as well.

Finally, the F-117 avoids detection because it doesn’t carry any of its munitions externally. The plane does have a few pieces of weaponry on board, though, such as radar- or infrared-seeking missiles and bombs deployed with laser guidance. So all of these design features combined to make a craft that was as close to invisible as possible at the time.

But the jet was secretive in more ways than one. It was, after all, a commission carried out by the Advanced Development Projects of Lockheed – which had also been responsible for ultra-secret craft such as the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. The USAF didn’t even acknowledge the existence of the F-117 as part of its arsenal until 1988 – six years after Lockheed had delivered the first completed aircraft.

Within two years of their official acknowledgment, though, the USAF had 59 F-117s in its fleet. The jets – which could carry 5,000 pounds and fly at speeds of up to 684mph – played a large part in the military conflicts of their time, too. In the first Gulf War and the invasion of Panama, for instance, the craft earned a reputation for striking with near-surgical accuracy.

In an Air Force press release, one-time F-117 maintainer Yancy Mailes lauded the plane’s uncanny ability to drop guided bombs exactly where they were intended to land. The expert explained, “It was the marriage of the GBU-27 to the F-117 that had a laser designator in its nose that made it such a precise, deadly platform.”

Mailes also recalled the pivotal role that the F-117’s precision had played in the first Gulf War conflict – particularly its second stage, which raged from mid-January through February 1991. The maintainer said, “It was best demonstrated during Operation Desert Storm when pilots snuck into Iraq and dropped weapons down the elevator shaft of a central communications building.”

Still, the F-117 – like all technology – was eventually phased out of service. The USAF retired the F-117 on April 22, 2008, after the craft had spent a quarter-century flying stealth for the military. Yet not all of the 59 aircraft made it back home safely. Yes, as previously mentioned, one of the famous radar-deflecting Nighthawks was gunned down in the line of duty.

That particular F-117 made up part of the American fleet in Operation Allied Force. This was the 1990 NATO-backed bombings of what was then still the state of Yugoslavia. The conflict arose in the country’s autonomous region of Kosovo – where Albanian-speaking Muslims made up the majority of the population. The problem was that the region’s ethnic Serbs reportedly felt marginalized and scared living in territory that they regarded as their home.

It seems that the situation became even tenser when Serbian socialist Slobodan Milošević entered the political landscape in the 1980s. In 1987, for instance, he promised Kosovo’s Serbian population – following their clashes with Albanian police – that no one would be able to physically oppress them any further. He later took control over Kosovo and removed Albanian officers from patrol.

But Milošević’s actions against Kosovo-based Albanians didn’t stop there. Under Milošević’s presidency, the government removed television channels, radio stations and newspapers in the Albanian language. Many Kosovar Albanians lost their jobs in the public sector, too, including in hospitals, banks and schools. Teachers were barred from entering their classrooms in 1991 – leaving their Albanian-speaking students to study from home.

All of this pushed the ethnic Albanian population to do something. So they banded together in 1991 to form the Kosovo Liberation Army – also known as the KLA. And, in the summer of 1998, this group took deadly action. The KLA assassinated Kosovo-based Serbian police officers and killed civilians. This sparked reaction from the Serbian-led authorities, who burned down houses and rolled through Albanian villages in armored vehicles, pushing people from their homes.

Things got worse in January 1999 after the KLA took down four more Serbs. That’s when government forces encircled the village of Račak and massacred 45 ethnic Albanians, including a child. At this point, then, the international media began to focus upon the growing violence in the region – and NATO did, too.

NATO even moved without the green light from the United Nations. What did it do? Well, it gave Milošević the option of allowing peacekeepers and refugees into Kosovo and removing the Serbs. But the Yugoslav leader refused the deal – and NATO forces prepared for Operation Allied Force. Its planes took off on March 24, 1999, with missiles ready to fire on Serbian strongholds.

So on March 27, 1999, it was Dale Zelko’s turn to take off as part of the air raids. He flew the F-117, the stealth jet – you’ll remember – designed to avoid radar detection. But the pilot had a bad feeling about this particular mission: weather conditions would prevent the Nighthawk from taking off with its typical escorts.

Normally, you see, two types of aircraft flew with the F-117 to protect the stealth plane. The F-16 was one of them, and it was usually armed with anti-radar missiles. A plane known as the Prowler would also jam electronic signals at the same time. But neither could take off with the Nighthawk – and that’s why Zelko was harboring misgivings.

Zelko told TV broadcaster the BBC in 2012, “I’d never felt so strongly – if there was ever a night, a mission for an F-117 to get shot down, it would be this one.” Yet little did the Nighthawk pilot know that he also had more than bad weather to contend with. On the ground, you see, Serbian commander Zoltan Dani had come up with an idea for taking down the stealth jet.

Dani’s role as a military commander wasn’t an easy one. His soldiers had great skills, and they had the morale required to win a tough battle. Yet they didn’t have the resources that NATO brought to the table. His forces also proved vulnerable to attack from the F-16 and its anti-radar missiles.

But Dani and his men had come up with a way to avoid the F-16s. This involved his men constantly moving around and only firing up their weapon systems for 20 seconds at a time. The tactic proved successful in eluding enemy detection. From there, then, the commander came up with another idea: one that could take down an otherwise-untraceable stealth jet.

Dani later said he drew inspiration from famed Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla as he reconfigured his troops’ equipment. According to Popular Mechanics magazine, the commander’s strategy had him “using a low bandwidth radar to queue the activation of a higher bandwidth, just when the F-117 would be visible to it.”

And it came time for Dani to put his method to the test on March 27. So, as his squad detected the F-117, they fired two missiles – and only one of them missed the Nighthawk. The commander later recalled, “When it hit, it felt very, very good. Like scoring the winning goal in a football match.”

The missile strike sent the F-117 hurtling uncontrollably through the air – with Zelko alive and at the helm. Zelko successfully ejected from the aircraft, though, and the F-117 crashed into the ground, remaining remarkably intact. Yet as the pilot floated through the air, he had some surprising thoughts about his ill-fated flight over Yugoslavia.

Zelko told the BBC, “I thought about the Serbian SAM (surface-to-air missile) operator, imagining having a coffee and conversation with this guy, saying to him, ‘Really nice shot.’ I had this huge respect for him and the Serbian people.” But his generous mood would soon dissipate when he hit the ground – in enemy territory.

Zelko then broke military protocol by radioing his comrades to tell them where he had landed. You see, he assumed that his descent from the plane had made it difficult for the enemy to find him. But the Serbians started a manhunt – as some had calculated where he would touch down as he parachuted to Earth.

Zelko had actually landed in a town called Ruma – and he worked quickly to hide. First, the pilot dug into the ground, burying his parachute into the earth. He then literally covered his tracks as he searched for a place to lay low. The unlucky airman had to make do with a drainage ditch overgrown with heavy foliage.

Before sliding into his hiding place, though, Zelko rubbed his exposed skin with mud to make himself less visible. The earthy material would cover his scent, too, should sniffer dogs come searching for him. And soon enough they did – along with police, soldiers and even villagers who took part in the massive manhunt for the NATO pilot.

As he lay in his hiding place, Zelko could feel the battle raging around him, too. But even as exploding bombs shook the earth, he couldn’t move to a new location. Instead, he waited it out – and, eventually, his patience paid off. It took eight hours for a helicopter to fly to his rescue over enemy lines.

The story of Zelko’s ill-fated flight and his damaged aircraft didn’t end there, though. Years after the conflict ended, Dani’s son, Atila, reached out to the pilot after seeing a documentary on his father’s unit called The 21st Second. Atila hoped to reconnect the former Serbian commander with the man he had shot down.

Surprisingly, Zelko was more than open to the concept. He told the BBC, “As soon as I read the idea of meeting the man who shot me down, my immediate reaction was, ‘Yes, absolutely,’ and I became obsessed with the idea. I felt I had to connect deeply and personally with this person and the Serbian people. It became a mission of passion for me.”

Zeljko Mirkovic, who filmed the first documentary on Dani, followed along when he reunited with Zelko. The subsequent documentary, The Second Meeting, revealed how the men and their families bonded and became real friends. And that was precisely the message the filmmaker hoped to convey. He said, “We all believed we had the right to send the message – hope, peace – which could be accepted universally.”

Since Operation Allied Force, too, the Balkans have come to find a semblance of peace. Milošević fell from power in 2000 after the U.N. indicted him for war crimes. Yugoslavia also split into its constituent parts: initially Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro. And in 2008 the region of Kosovo followed Montenegro in declaring its independence from Serbia. This decision has since been recognized by 110 countries around the world – and is reinforced by the thousands of NATO troops still protecting the fledgling nation.