On May 1, 1960, CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers took off from Peshawar, Pakistan in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane. His mission: fly across the entire Soviet Union at 70,000 feet, photographing military installations, and land in Bodø, Norway. He never made it. A Soviet S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile detonated near his aircraft over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), and Powers was captured alive. The incident torpedoed a superpower summit, humiliated the Eisenhower administration, and changed the Cold War.

The Untouchable Airplane

The Lockheed U-2 was designed by Kelly Johnson’s Skunk Works for a single purpose: fly higher than anything the Soviets could reach. At 70,000 feet — more than 13 miles above the Earth — the U-2 operated above the service ceiling of every Soviet interceptor and, initially, above the reach of Soviet surface-to-air missiles. The aircraft carried a camera system capable of resolving objects as small as 2.5 feet from altitude. President Eisenhower authorized U-2 overflights of the Soviet Union beginning in July 1956. The flights were extraordinarily productive. CIA analysts used U-2 photography to map Soviet airfields, missile sites, submarine bases, and nuclear facilities. The intelligence was invaluable — and it was obtained by routinely violating Soviet sovereignty at a time when such a provocation could have triggered war. The Soviets knew the U-2 was there. Their radar tracked it on every overflight. But their MiG-19 interceptors could not reach 70,000 feet, and their early surface-to-air missiles lacked the altitude capability to engage it. The U-2 flew with impunity — which bred complacency.

May Day, 1960

Powers’ mission — Operation Grand Slam — was the deepest and most ambitious U-2 overflight yet planned. The route crossed the Soviet Union from south to north, passing over the Tyuratam missile test center (the Soviet space launch facility, later known as Baikonur), Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, and Plesetsk before exiting Soviet airspace over Murmansk. Powers took off from Peshawar at 6:26 a.m. local time. The flight proceeded normally until he was over the Sverdlovsk area. At approximately 70,500 feet, a newly deployed S-75 Dvina battery — the missile system NATO designated SA-2 Guideline — fired a salvo of 14 missiles at the aircraft. At least one missile detonated close enough to damage the U-2. The aircraft became uncontrollable. Powers attempted to activate the self-destruct mechanism but was unable to reach the switches as the aircraft tumbled. He manually released the canopy, separated from the aircraft, and parachuted to the ground. He was captured almost immediately by Soviet citizens. The S-75 salvo was not entirely successful in a tactical sense — one of the missiles also hit a Soviet MiG-19 that had been scrambled to intercept Powers, killing the Soviet pilot, Senior Lieutenant Sergei Safronov. This friendly-fire incident was covered up by the Soviet government for decades.

The Lie That Collapsed

When the Soviets announced that they had shot down an American aircraft, the Eisenhower administration activated its cover story: the U-2 was a NASA weather research aircraft that had gone off course from a flight in Turkey. The pilot had reported oxygen difficulties and may have strayed into Soviet airspace accidentally. Khrushchev had set a trap. He initially announced only that a plane had been shot down, without revealing that the pilot had survived or that the wreckage — including the camera, exposed film, and intelligence equipment — had been recovered largely intact. The American cover story was issued. Then Khrushchev revealed everything: the surviving pilot, the spy camera, the photographs of Soviet military installations, and the poison-tipped suicide needle that Powers had been issued but chose not to use. The humiliation was total. Eisenhower was forced to admit that the United States had been conducting systematic aerial espionage over the Soviet Union. The Paris Summit — scheduled for May 16, where Eisenhower and Khrushchev were to discuss arms control and Berlin — collapsed before it began. Khrushchev demanded an apology that Eisenhower refused to give.

The Trial and the Exchange

Powers was tried in Moscow in August 1960 in a heavily publicized show trial. He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to three years in prison plus seven years of hard labor. Powers cooperated with his Soviet interrogators to a degree that later generated controversy in the United States — though a CIA review board ultimately concluded that he had not revealed critical information and had performed reasonably under the circumstances. On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged for Rudolf Ivanovich Abel — the cover name of Soviet intelligence officer Vilyam Fisher — on the Glienicke Bridge connecting West Berlin and Potsdam. The exchange became one of the iconic moments of the Cold War, later dramatized in Steven Spielberg’s 2015 film “Bridge of Spies.”

Powers’ Difficult Homecoming

Powers returned to the United States to a complicated reception. Some in the intelligence community and the military criticized him for not using the self-destruct mechanism, for not using the suicide needle, and for cooperating with the Soviets during his imprisonment. He was seen by some as having failed to uphold the expected standard of resistance. The criticism was largely unfair. Powers had been told that the self-destruct would give him time to eject — it did not. The suicide needle was optional — the CIA had not ordered him to use it. And his behavior during captivity was consistent with the guidance he had received. Powers worked for Lockheed as a test pilot after his return, then as a helicopter traffic reporter for a Los Angeles television station. He was killed on August 1, 1977, when his helicopter crashed after running out of fuel. He was 47 years old. In 2000, Powers was posthumously awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the National Defense Service Medal.

The Legacy

The U-2 incident did not end American aerial reconnaissance — it moved it into space. The shootdown accelerated the development of the Corona spy satellite program, which achieved its first successful film recovery in August 1960, just three months after Powers was shot down. Satellites could overfly the Soviet Union without violating sovereignty, and they could not be shot down. The U-2 itself continued flying — it is still in service with the USAF today, more than 70 years after its first flight. But it never again overflew the Soviet Union. The era of manned aerial espionage over hostile superpowers ended on May 1, 1960, above Sverdlovsk. Sources: CIA declassified U-2 program history, “Bridge of Spies” by Giles Whittell, Powers family archives, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings (1960)