[[ received from Keith Preston, (kwp@prin.edu) on Oct.15, 1996 ]]
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----  Airstreams, not missile, downed U2 spy plane: Ex-Soviet pilot ------
                        Straights Times 10/13/96

 
  MOSCOW -- A former Soviet fighter-pilot has broken 36 years of
  silence to reveal what he said was the true story of one of the hottest
  moments of the Cold War -- the downing of United States agent Gary
  Powers' U2 spy plane.
 
  In an interview published in Trud newspaper on Friday, Mr Igor
  Mentyukov said his new Sukhoi Su-9 fighter was unarmed when he was
  scrambled over the Urals and ordered to ram the high-flying "spy in the
  sky" piloted by Mr Powers.> 
  He said he managed to overtake the U2 and "Powers' plane got into the
  slipstream of my Su-9. The airstreams whip past at 180 m a second,
  plus the turning factor. It started to flip him over, his wings broke off ...
  It all happened by chance".
 
  Mr Mentyukov said Soviet generals, eager to satisfy Kremlin leader
  Nikita Khrushchev's misguided faith in Moscow's rocket defences,
  covered up his extraordinary feat and insisted for three decades that the
  U2 was hit by a guided missile. Worse, he said, the missile batteries
  actually fired at him after a mix-up over codes.
 
  The downing of the U2 on the morning of May 1, 1960, provoked a
  sudden chill between the two superpowers.
 
  Mr Powers, working on contract for the US Central Intelligence Agency,
  was put on public trial in Moscow in August 1960 and jailed for 10
  years for espionage. He was released in February 1962 in a spy
  exchange.
 
  The unassuming agent, who died in 1977, was always unable to give a
  clear account of how he was brought down. He said he felt an
  explosion, the U2 went into a spin and he ejected to safety.
  "Everywhere I looked was orange," he once recalled.
 
  Mr Mentyukov, who was rewarded with "Saturn wristwatches and an
  order to shut up", said the US pilot was describing the sonic boom of the
  Sukhoi overtaking him from above and the flare of its jet engine. --
  Reuter.
 
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