A Soviet pilot claims he brought down Francis Gary Powers – not a missile

Interesting history news share.

In the book "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed" by Ben Rich he states the Soviets basically fired a volley of Surface to Air Missiles and in the process shot down one of their own aircraft that was chasing Powers. The shock wave from that shoot down tore off the vertical stabilizer of Powers' U2. The U2 was a very fragile aircraft and didn't take much to damage it.

Possible, but it would have been operating at the extreme edge of the SU-9's ceiling. The one thing I would point out is that part of his premise is incorrect: "He also says the explosions from the S-75 missile battery would have completely annihilated Powers' aircraft and that it couldn't possibly have taken a hit at 70,000 feet and still been recreated on the ground." That is completely dependent on how far from the U-2 the S-75 missile was when it detonated. Powers could simply have flown through shrapnel from a missile explosion that didn't achieve a direct hit but doing enough damage to the U-2 to compromise its ability to stay in the air.