U-2: END OF A 'ROUTINE MISSION'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000400030006-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 1998
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: July 31, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

DAYLY NEWS
CPYTzed - Approved For ReIea;Id9DP7
Francis Gary- Powers
C (above) made the U-2
famous when his went., .
i down in Russia. Caps-
I bility of high altitude re-
connaissance is illustrated
by Washington, D. C.,
scenes at right. Tiny rect. ~,.
angle at end of arrow was
?' tel and cars parked,
fabulous, troubled U-2, one -o the
rtvorld's best-known secrets, was back in the miles. .~;
news last week. Air Force Capt. Robert D. Hick- Radar Found Powers' U-2
nian, 32, of Alexandria, La., left Barksdale, La., Air He crossed the Soviet border at more than 70 000`
'Force Base Thursday on a "routine' mission," headed feet, far above the range of any Soviet plane, which'l
.toward Florida and Its' environs. Hickman :failed to would flame out in the rare air. But Soviet radar was'i
make a planned turn between Sarasota and Key WeA. locked on, the spy plane, and when Powers ran into'-,
as he flew down the coast, and flew.on south,..perhaps? H trouble and was forced to descend to a lower altitude
unconscious because of a failure in the craft's. oxygen' he ?was'downed. The Russians recovered Powers, his a
system. wrecked plane and its intelligence gear.
The. high-flying plane, obviously originally hW,1`cl;. An American, pilot, 'announced the National Aero-,1
for Cuba and a surveillance mission, was spotted by I nautics and Space Administration, piously, had re.
'radar over Panama. Then, on automatic pilot, it' con-'' ported difficulties with his oxygen system while flying'
tinued south high 'above the towering Andes for half a weather mission over Turkey. The unnamed pilot,
the length of the South American continent. When it.s Nasa indicated, might have lost c6nsciousness and
fuel ran'
an out it went into a glide sad crashed west of flown over Russia by accident. Powers-could have been')
Oruro, Bolivia, a tin mining town near the Peru-Chile'i close to Soviet borders, Nasa added, because the U.S.
border 140 miles south of La Paz. Scattered wrecks e weather research program was worldwide.
and Hickman's battered body were found by farmer;.
The plane's disappearance recalled the incident:
a $2,500-a-month civilian, j lot employed by Lockheed history that a. spy had invaded the borders of another
Aircraft, builder of the spy plane. Powers on that day I country. 1Eisenhower accepted fttlt-'responsibility, and
-Just 16 days before a four-nation (U.S., Russia, Brit- ++ the summit nieeting,wa ecuttled. ' ?,
win, France) summit conference in Paris-took off-)' Pow+rs, 31, was tried, pleaded, guilty to espionage-
from Turkey and headed -over the Soviet Union, faun 'charges and was sentenced -to ".10 years-three in
'targets on his knee clipboard: the rocket complex at prison and seven 1n-a prison colony. On Feb. 10, 1962,
T yura Tam, east of the Aral Sea; Sverdlovsk and 'its '?I Powers was released and returned to American author-"
mysteriously ? domed . missile launch points, and the :I tie in, excBange fdt' the release' of Col, Rudolf. Abel,'
Soviet ; alr? and :nbmarine.' bases , at: Archangel and.;l - " '
. When Premier Khrushchev produced the plane's .;
wreckage, and Powers, an agonizing reappraisal was.'.
necessary in Washington. Finally, President Eisen
Sanitized - Approved For Release :CIA DP75-00149R0004ft'&M-2