formerspook
March 27, 1999: it was the fourth night of Operation Allied Force, the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. The effort's initial phase had gone remarkably well; U.S. and allied aircraft had inflicted heavy damaged on Serb air defenses and other critical targets, without the loss of a single NATO aircraft. When the Serbs tried to fight back, they generally paid a high price; three of their MiG-29 Fulcrums had been shot down in the early hours of the conflict, and a number of surface-to-air missile (SAM) batterys had been knocked out of action as well.
But the Serbs would soon exact their revenge--and against an unlikely target. The first U.S. aircraft lost in Allied Force was an F-117 stealth fighter. Almost invisible to radar (and largely invulnerable to enemy air defenses), the Nighthawk had made its reputation over Iraq almost a decade earlier and was assigned to high-value Serbian targets.
After dropping his bombs near Belgrade, Lt Col Dale Zelko turned his F-117 towards the northwest, in the general direction of Aviano AB, Italy, where the stealth jets were deployed. It was his second sortie of Allied Force and everything seemed routine--or, as routine as a combat mission could be--until the aircraft's defensive system went off, telling Zelko that his jet (Callsign Vega 31) was being targeted by enemy air defenses.
Second later, a Serb SA-3 exploded near the F-117, sending it out of control. Realizing the aircraft would not survive, Zelko pulled the ejection handles and left the crippled jet. What followed was a six hour search-and-rescue mission to recover Lt Col Zelko before he could be captured by Serb security forces. The story of that rescue has been retold in various publications, including this detailed, 2006 account by Darrel Whitcomb of Air Force magazine. It's an amazing read, and a fine tribute to the chopper crews, A-10 pilots and pararescuemen who flew deep into Serb territory to retrieve Colonel Zelko.
http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2011/01/legacy-of-vega-31.html
