How a Nighthawk Was Shot Down

On 27th March, 1999 Lt. Col. Darrell Zelko from the USAF 49th Fighter Wing was on a bombing mission over Serbia in his F-117A Nighthawk as a part of the Operation Allied Force. His mission was to take out the enemy command center near Belgrade. Without any support aircraft that night, Zelko relied solely on the stealth capabilities of his Nighthawk. But below him, a Serbian SAM battery under the command of Lt. Col. Zoltan Dani, equipped with an obsolete Soviet-made S-125 Neva missile system was waiting.