The pilot of a US Air Force U-2 spyplane was killed on Wednesday when the plane crashed in Southwest Asia after a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan, the US military said.
“The aircraft had completed its mission and was returning to base when the crash occurred,” Air Force Capt. David Small, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command Air Forces, or CENTAF, said by telephone from the Gulf region.
Small refused to say where the U-2, which was based with the 380th US Air Expeditionary Wing in the United Arab Emirates, had crashed but added that the incident was under investigation. The jet went down late last night, which was today in the Asia region.
“U-2s have been flying daily over Iraq and Afghanistan” in support of US and allied forces fighting in the two countries, Small said in an interview.
The single-seat, high-altitude reconnaissance and surveillance plane, a veteran of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, is unarmed but flies at altitudes that make it impervious to many ground-fired weapons.
CENTAF is the air arm of the US Central Command, which is responsible for US military operations in the Gulf, Middle East and parts of Asia.
