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Just a little question, what's the music in your « Gloster Meteor - The Only Allied Jet to Fight in WW2 » video on Dark Skies? Thanks! btw love your videos!
I heard that Colonel backstory before. Didn’t know he had his own intelligence network. He was a one man army. How they listen to NATO communication traffic? Wasn’t it encrypted?
@Jim The Raspberry, I just wish he'd slow down at bit. Slurring words together isn't very pleasing to listen to. So many people complain about his fast "run on/auctioneer" speaking but he doesn't check comments or care about his viewers. Could be a really good channel. I guess he wasn't educated properly on public speaking?
@@fisophia1734 'OG' is a 'street' or "slang" term used in what will be, within a reasonable timeframe, a definition considered colloquial for 'Original Gansster".
Stealth coating in F-117 is consist a hazard material for living being,even when in maintainance,the engineer need to wear a special suit to protect themself from the coating material.
Good on the pilot for recognizing another man doing his duty and showing respect instead of hate. Neat piece of history. *edit* -Sheesh, the dude who got shot down is less angry than some of the people in this comment chain. Learn from his example. Acknowledging service to ones nation (exemplary at that, he bested the unbeatable) can be separate from showing approval for the broader actions by the nation being served.
@@chinookh4713 The whole point of stealth aircraft was to avoid the nead for ECM aircraft... When a strike group is coming with an ECM aircraft (with ECM on) it is difficult to target but at the cost of anouncing to all the radars in the region that they are coming with the huge ECM cloud. Additional downside is the need for additional aircraft and/or reduced payload. Stealth was an attempt to achieve the benefit without the downsides - although the concept brought in some new downsides of its own, such as huge development, production and maintenence costs as well as reduced aircraft performance and sensor capability (a stealth aircraft that switches on its radar ceases to be stealth).
The "displaced Albanian citizens" shown on and near the ship at 1:54 actually is an old shot showing Albanians in Italy in 1991, years before the Bosnian-Serb conflict. The F-117A was shot down in 1999.
Someone would say it is war propaganda of British filmmaker so i do acept that , thay have to leay to enshure reason of this invasion on Serbian Teritory ! Today we`ll call that "FAKE NEWS"!
"Sorry we didnt know it was invisible" -some yugoslav guy edit: why need a college degree on politics, history *OR* flying when you can just check the replies on my comment for *FREE*
Yeah when i heard that lucky remark i assumed it would've been a barrage of flack that scored a lucky hit. 2 Missles, one close enough to rumble the plane and a a 2 for 2 actually bringing it down isn't a lucky shot. Its the result of a very inteligent commander fully commited to his job. It was only made possible by some lazy ass, arrogant complacent behaviour from the yanks tho. Same flight path 3 days in a row, no jamming and on a course that needed steap banking manouvers. Makes you wonder wtf all those other commanders where doing on the ground.
He took advantage of a lucky situation with skill. There was still luck involved, but no luck in the world would do anything without also knowing what you're doing. So it's a combination of both.
Yup, commander Zoltan Dani spoke on multiple ocasions about "science part" how and why they modified system. There are videos on youtube of him speaking, but they are only in serbian, without translation to english.
$111.2 million was worth it when it couldn't be seen or shot down. When it got shot down suddenly the cost seemed a bit high, that was the beginning of the end of the F-117. It's probably good the USA found out when we did that we needed even better technology. If this hadn't happened, we might not have got funding for the the F-22 or F-35 approved.
@@Scorch428 "They got 1 plane" They got one $111.2 million dollar stealth fighter, the best fighter plane in the world at the time, with a soviet era surface to air missile from 1961. Also they got more than 1 plane. They got 1 stealth fighter, but they also shot down several other non stealth manned aircraft, plus about a dozen unmanned drones. Most people don't consider Americans overconfident, but they do consider Americans ignorant, commenting on things when they don't know what they are talking about. "Got 1 plane." lol.
Doesn’t sound like a “lucky” colonel, he pulled off the perfect ambush of a billion dollar stealth bomber with a skilled pilot. Well done to the pilot on evasion.
@@kcimb I thought it was the B1 which I guess is ONLY half a billion. I am sorry, my country spends so many trillions upon trillions of dollars on unneeded guns and weapons it is very very hard to keep track. Why was this one so much cheaper if you happen to know? It appears to be the only "stealth" aircraft shot down, that may be more of a function of the US love of beating up on weak helpless countries than anything though.
lok777 the guns and weapons are needed. Do you speak German? Russian? Japanese? Forced to work on a collective farm ? Even a b1 isn’t a billion. Money well spent.
kcimb please. We spend more on the military than the next six strongest countries put together. It is absurd how much we have spent on the military as our infrastructure crumbles. We absolutely do not need to spend half of our nations tax revenue on the military.
Only fired 2 missiles that follow the engine heat. They haven't seen the plane for is route . The plane bombed his targets . Does mean the Serb defence was good enough to trace the plane ?? Not it wasn't . Was total luck shot down it . That's it
@@luletuning3005 Actually, they ( Serbs ) locked on target, when it had bomb-bay doors open. That was the time, when the plane could be tracked. So, it wasn’t lucky shot.
@@janurbanovic67 before hitting the targets or before ?? Does mean that he was "walking" in your airspace in the heart of Belgrade . Hit is target and after fired. Does mean again that after firing the targets you fired missiles that for sure follow the burst heat of engines . If your old Russian system was efficient have been locked from the time that enter and not after have been hit his targets. Was Serbia all budget 1 of 1000 of USA military budget ??
He (Zoltan Dani) also says that they took down a B2, but it was crashed outside their area, so (as he says) "This was a goal taken back by the referee" Furthermore, it was only a few bucks of worth modification on the radar to be able to detect the F117. Many country wanted that mod, but he never sold it to anyone. Currently he owns a bakery :) Awesome guy :)
I know/heard he used longintude electronic wawes. And novadays he make a bakery shop near Subotica/Szabadka. Hit the rocket the airplane like the western citizenship hit the east type of alcohol ( sljijovica/pálinka).
I mean it flew the mission without the radar jamming support so there was a lot of luck for that to happen/ stupidity of the Air Force to let the mission continue without the support
Samuel Gordino, it was still a stroke of luck that the USAF decided to be dumb. I dare say it was skill, luck and the stupidity of the states in equality that brought it down.
@Olatunji, DarkDocs did use "lucky" at the beginning, but I believe the rest of the episode properly acknowledged his effort and results. It almost choked me up at the end learning about the pilot and the commander becoming friends. I have read similar stories of US Pilots who flew over Vietnam and Japan, later meeting rival pilots they had dog fights with. Great stuff!
Photo at 1:55 was taken in Bari, Italy in March of of 1991. It shows tens of thousands of Albanian refugees who sailed over Adriatic sea to flee their own country after domestic civil unrest that started with the fall of Communism in 1990. This has nothing to do with Kosovo War which happened 8 years later and has absolutely nothing to do with Serbia. It's pretty sad to use this photo to affirm what you are saying when dramatically talking about Serbian ethnic-cleansing and war crimes. It's almost as if something you're saying is not completely true if you resort to making in more believable with photos from unrelated events ;)
Because it is all hoax. Just look at UNHCR report. The mass fleeing from Kosovo province according to that report started after the first bombs fell and not as implied in the video. Also, are hospitals, one train, chemical factory, car factory and sometimes even houses a legitimate military target?
@@gentian7162 did I say that? And 90% of them returned, what's your point? I and many other Serbs did not. The baby wing of hospital "Dragiša Mišović" was bombed, you cannot say it was a slip-up. Chemical factories pollute the environment regardless, but amplifying it with bombs tenfold is good in your opinion?
Calm down about it, this is a UA-cam content creator, and paying licensing for every single video clip for every video he makes completely unrealistic. He is telling a story that most wouldn’t know about in the first place and trying to bring light to the story itself
Lucky my ass, that dude used his equipment to its best ability, and he studied up on stealth tech. Dude was ready and knew how to use the "outdated" equipment it had to shoot down the most advanced plane of its time. Dudes a Legend.
Yeah, they were both literally trying to kill eachother, but both agree that it was nothing personal. As it should be. They were just soldiers, and once the fighting is over, they're just people.
@@nightwalker9828 And your point is? If there was a way to safely take out the targets and at the same time guarantee no loss of life, I bet he would've taken that over killing Serbian soldiers any day... As I said, it was nothing personal, they were soldiers, death is an occupational hazard both for the soldiers on the ground and pilots in the air on both sides...
The F-117 wasn't a very sophisticated stealth plane since it was designed before curved stealth features could be designed. The best part is the key catalyst for stealth came from a soviet radio engineer, despite the massive censorship machine of the USSR, the organs failed to see the implications of his work.
I saw that documentary. When they went to the museum to see the plane, Col. Zelko saw some of his personal flight gear and exclaimed "Hey, that's my stuff!" Yes...one warrior can respect another from the other side, even those with whom they were directly in combat against. There was an F-4 pilot who shot down a Mig-21 in Vietnam. The VN pilor survived, and the 2 became friends...to the point where the VN pilot came to the US to visit and sat in the cockpit of the very same F-4 that had shot him down.
My grandfather was a RAF fighter pilot during ww2 he had a German pistol given to him by a lufthwafe pilot that my grandfather had shot down as a sign of respect
@@alexv6119 I'd argue that....many MANY conflicts have hate of others of some sort as a beginning point....religious issues, resources, some perceived issue, etc.
@@samsignorelli yeah you're right. I was thinking more along the lines of the soldiers though. They dont get to choose their fights and like you said, most of the time they don't have have hatred. Wars do start over hate tho
@@alexv6119 soldiers go to war because they get sent. my great grandpa never wanted to fight in ww2, the Dutch surrendered after a few days because Rotterdam got decimated.
Kudos to the general who, despite knowing they were going to loose, continued to strive to do his job the best he could and hopefully embarrass his enemy in the process
I'm not surprised, the Yugoslavian colonel was very good at his job meaning he was devoted and personally invested in it. Considering when this happened, the colonel was certainly trained in the height of the Cold War, these weren't second-rate troops by any stretch.
Serbian army had confidence,they didn't even think about losing,and they would never retreat if Milosevic didn't order them,many even hated Milosevic for it,but he did it because he trusted a false promises from Russia who garanteed that resolution 1244 will be respected if Serbian army leaves Kosovo. Russian president at that time was a drunkard and a USA puppet,so he tricked Milosevic sadly.
The Nighthawk was never "invisible", just hard to detect. However, stealth cannot counter poor tactics. Slack radio discipline and repeated use of the same attack routes did as much if not more to bring down this jet.
There were a lot of factors that compounded to result in the loss of that airframe. The Tornado ECRs weren't available that night and the American EW planes weren't able to pinpoint the SAM site from a single emission, Tornado was already capable of that at that point. The ROE said, the Coalition forces weren't allowed to shoot at SAM systems on the wrong side of the border. The US SEAD element wasn't able to know, where that SAM system was and thus didn't engage. The Serbian SAM systems across the border never shot, but reported all plane movements to systems inside the AO. Laziness of always picking the same routes made it trivial to expect the plane. The SAM commander was a good officer that knew exactly, when the F-117 would be vulnerable and let it run directly into the killzone of his battery. The nights before, the German EW pin-pointed the SAM batteries and the Americans engaged them, but that wasn't quick that night. The nights before that, heavy jamming by the Germans
My friend is 2021 . You haven't stopped with your propaganda yet ?? You have enough proofs what has happened to civilians in Kosovo and not only. Srebrenica 10 thousand civilians killed in in some days with the gas given to Serbs butcheres from Dutch army to bring that poor people in a big forest and open common graves for them there. An army don't attack the civilians and Stubbs children and women. What you can do is in your DNA , you never will change
@SLADKO4ik yes serbs of Sebrenica and Croatia only because they was different slaves popullation. Look sebrenica how many have died in some days. 10 thousand. Ask forgiveness to them , every one of you that here do sick politics and you ever know English
Shit we were so damn lax running routes the same a few times and then opening the weapons bay in a dangerous location. They grabbed the opportunity and got it right
@Joe Al, they massacred civilians? Really? Or highly likely? My advice to you, is looking what Albania have done from WW2 to these days. What they declare and what they fought done, using possible friends......
In spite of its “F” prefix. The “ Wobbly Goblin “ was a light bomber. NOT a fighter. To be blunt. The U.S. forces couldn’t have made life any more difficult for Vega 31, if they had tried. Yet another example of “Lions, lead by donkeys” .
ratagris21 - No, it was designated as a Fighter to mislead Russian spies and observers. But “kids today” read “fighter” and make a video calling it just that without actually knowing it’s history. Hell I bet the wiki page for it would explain why it had a fighter designation... 🙄
The 117 was a very capable stealth plane and people make it sound like it was obsolete in its role because this happened to it. The missile commander had all of the factors in his favor and knew how to use them, and even then it was still a very difficult kill to pull off. If they were used as designed and as part of a well-coordinated stealth operation, these occurrences would be almost impossible otherwise.
@@frankthespank A televised documentary quoted project manager Alan Brown as saying that Robert J. Dixon, a four-star Air Force general who was the head of Tactical Air Command felt that the top-notch USAF fighter pilots required to fly the new aircraft were more easily attracted to an aircraft with an "F" designation for fighter, as opposed to a bomber ("B") or attack ("A") designation.[
Well it was supposed to be unsinkable, if they built it right. If it was been made right it would have survived the collision with the ice berg but they were hasty and cheap and ignored any maintenance needed.
@@shujmosham..8468 All NATO pilots were either saved by the SEALs, or captured by Yugoslavian Army. Except for hush hush operations of foreign special forces and mercenary insurgents. That's a whole other dimension of this war which was not much discussed about.
I was thinking the same. If he had only slowed down a bit, it would have been much more enjoyable. The voice itself is pleasant enough but speaking so fast makes it sound a bit strained.
zz zz Sorry, we don’t care that NATO exists any longer. And sorry you didn’t manage to bomb Serbia into Stone Age. But somehow this “Republic of Kosovo” managed to stay in the Stone Age without bombing.
Sad se saznalo da ima 3 kom srušena od F.117 i neznam koliko B.2 B.52 izaće i to na videlo! Sigurno ima po jedan od svakog a kriju lopuže! Polako istina ispliva kad tad na površinu! Srećna nova!
"The F-117 was suppose to be invisible." The military never said that. Only reporters and UA-camrs have ever said that. Stealth fighter pilots say "The only plane that's invisible is Wonder Womans."
Exactly - the Americans tried to mislead people into believing that Stealth aircraft were undetectable (they even released footage of them in daytime operation and painted regular colours), but the truth was that they were perfectly vulnerable - if you could see them, you could shoot them down, so the aircraft were only operated at night and painted black. As this event proved, even that wasn't enough to stop the Yugoslavian colonel who worked out how to locate them at night. Oops....
MrFlazz99 That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying the US military never tried to say it was invisible, stealth only makes it harder to pick up on radar but not completely invisible.
I always love hearing about former adversaries coming together in friendship after facing off in conflict. These stories tell me that my faith in humanity is not totally misplaced. To me it shows that our shared humanity is in the end, more important than whatever group or country or whatnot they were fighting for.
Weirdly, to me it just makes me upset, knowing that 99% of us get along fine and still people join militaries and fight in wars on behalf of our stuck up leaders. If people would just stop listening to politicians. . .
I remember this happening. As a child I was obsessed with the F117, and how seemingly invincible it was. When I saw the images of one that had been shot down it crushed me.
The equipment on the S-125 Neva Pechora was not specially modified to be able to discover the stealth.That was cheap trick from Lt. Zoltan Dani to take all the credit for the shotdown. It's very nicely documented how it all happened min by min. They say that on the Acquisition radar which they were turning on for only 30 secs. few times before relocation they Radar operator managed to spot strange signature like he had never seen before which he described as a small blury thing and he said that he thinks that he got the "invisible" cause it was unusual for other planes to fly alone.After that training took over, the plane was returning from a bombing run in the Capital Belgrade and it's not true that the bomb bay was open... They let him come to what they called the "Killing zone" and after tracking it and passing it to the targeting radar Operator, he got him instantly locked manually and switched to auto tracking while constantly giving info to the battery commander, who gave order launch first, deafening noise and confirmation 1st launched and tracking, 5 sec later command for 2nd launch and same result, both got him locked in the so called killing zone and the Pilot said that he saw the rocket comming through the cloud going for him giving him no room for evasive maneuver and very quckly huge explosion ripped the whole wing which made the F-117 going down in spiral losing altitude very fast and just he gave last position relative to "Bulls eye - predetermined spot on the map" and ejection followed... The guys didn't knew till tomorrow morrning that they shot down the Nighthawk.That's shortest i can do explaining how it went... no special things, nothing... just a cocky US commanders giving same route 3 days in a row to the F-117s with no escort and very well trained crew getting maximum with what they had to defend their sky which i can only congratulate them on the huge success. Who likes to read more can find lots of stuff about story of the same crew shoting down B2 Spirit Of Missouri who crushed in Croatia in woods and after that for weeks only millitary was present there and hundreeds of trucks were going in and out of that area taking all the evidence and just to be sure digging huge crater and taking even the soil more than 2meters deep and after cover up that became artificial lake and from that day Spirit Of Missouri was never seen flying or anywhere at US airports in hangars. One year It wasnt even on the list of military planes in active service which leads to many questions and lots of guesses and theories... sorry for the long comment and my average english... cheers
Igo drowsy Thanks I’ve never heard about the claim of a B2 also being downed, but I’ll read up on it to see if I believe the official story or not. I wouldn’t put it past the US government to have covered it up if it had been actually lost in combat,
After this incident, the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was bombed by US because some parts of F117 were stored in the basement of the embassy. The US then claimed “we were using a wrong old map”.
Big myth about the F117s on the first night of Desert Storm. They didn't fly through the Iraqi air defense network. They flew through a large hole in the grid made by US Army Apache helicopters.
@A E NO........ and no. Stealth doesn't mean invisible, The F-117 was ALWAYS on a radar it is just hard to spot but not impossible. 1st Gen Stealth Aircraft just showed up small on a radar
@@Dogmeat1950 I always wandered how much it would be actually easy for radar operator to identify "stealth" plane. Like: "hmmm, this significantly smaller spot on the screen look like a fighter jet, but regular fighter jet would be much larger and brighter spot, so this must be a stealth plane."
4:45 In 1991 I wrote a college paper on stealth technology that questioned the ability of B-2 stealth bomber to complete their stealth missions due to the vulnerability to be detected by long wave radars used by the Soviets at the time. This video substantiated my hypothesis by showing that exact technology was used in part to bring down a much smaller F117. Guess I deserved the "A" that I received on that paper. LOL
"Lucky" my armpit! If the video content is correct, the Colonel showed incredible diligence and dedication to his ambition to bring down the ghost. The timing fell in his favour, sure, but he used it to his advantage. I wouldn't call that luck. Always give credit where credit is due.
Reflecting is fine, just as long as it doesn’t reflect back to the radar receiver, that’s why aircraft have very shallow angles to avoid giving radars a 90 degree angle to reflect back to the radar.
Seems like there's a couple of takeaways: 1) that colonel wasn't lucky, he did his homework, stepped up to the plate, and delivered; 2) it wasn't the stealth technology per say that failed, much more that the fact Italian civilians could tell the enemy when the aircraft was coming.
I think the best part of this story was at the end where the pilot and the man responsible for shooting him down are able to come together and forge a friendship despite being formerly on opposing sides.
Never happy to see one of our pilots shot down, but I must say I am impressed with Zelkos tactics and efforts. Glad he and the pilot were able to meet and show respect to each other.
This the best short documentary on this topic I've seen. Hopefully showing that the pilot and the guy who shot him down are now friends, we can stop arguing about it in comment threads.
Wasn't shot down it was hit for shure because there was some panic radio messages intercepted some say it managed to cravel to the Aviano base some other sources pointing on adriatic sea as final destination. Which not much later become only by coincidence of course a point of interest for oil company to seek a gas fields in adriatic sea, did not find a lot I mean a lot of gas but they were there quite a long time.
It just shows that when men fight men with machines, it isn't about necessarily killing the man operating it, but rather destroying the machine. This is why these two men are able to shake hands. Sure, Donnie got shot down, but he also escaped. Ship vs ship, one wants the other to sink, not necessarily a loss of life (though largely unavoidable). Plane vs plane, plane vs missile battery, again, it is the machine that is the target.
Yeah but that plane was bombing a lot of civil targets too : / We in Serbia see this officers actions a bit odd and ugly in some way, making friends with a pilot that killed many but yeah, now its all pretty much long passed time to be something specialy emotional about it but that wont stop yt comment wars : D
@Mark Young holy fuck man... all that and I click on your profile and the third comment down is literally you complaining about how many ads are on a DarkDocs vid😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 I fucking can't😭😭😭😭
@@taktischesgenie331 how is the comment stolen? So many people are saying it. It's all over the comment section, not to mention it's a quote to begin with.
Fun fact: They're not invisible to radar at all. Through intelligence, enemy radar placement and a ton of zig zag flying a stealth fighter attempts to slip through the cracks and utilizes the radar positions to attempt to make the smallest radar signature possible. In other words, you can't just fly into enemy territory on a whim, as would be noticed.
Milosevic agreed to all terms imposed to him by Albright except for one that nobody would accept: the complete and unhindered access to all parts of Yugoslavia by NATO forces. That effectively means an occupation. Even Kissinger said that was over the top. NATO and Albright gave Milosevic an offer he could not accept because they wanted to go to war. Whatever you think of Milosevic, the war against Yugoslavia was illegal and also against NATO's own charter. They would use this model over and over again against other countries. NATO also redirected the bombing campaign when they couldn't crush the Yugoslav army. They were not hitting enough military targets because they hid them and moved them. So they resorted to bombing civilian targets. Not only factories and infrastructure but also open markets, hospitals, a commuter train and random houses in random villages. Extensive environmental damage was done. After Milosevic finally gave in and had his forces withdraw from Kosovo, some 200k Serbs, Roma, moderate Albanians and other minorities were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo under the watchful eye of NATO's own KFOR sent there to protect all people. In Kosovo, people are getting sick due to DU weapons used there.
@CR oh come on now! That technology was much more advanced than the time it was developed. All of our future tech is much more advanced and has a lot longer shelf time than most. That plane was the most advanced flying that we knew of. Now the TR3B was probably around then but that doesn't count. Give them props for pulling it off. It was an impressive tactical achievement for the technology they were using. If the pilot who got shot down can show respect you can too. War is not black and white.
@Meekys lol I'm an American and laughed my ass off at that comment. Obviously the pilot who got shot down held no grudge. Soldiers do their duties. Period. I would hope our own soldiers would be as creative in using equipment as they were with their missile batteries! It taught us valuable lessons as well. Sometimes a failure is needed to learn from. Gotta give our pilot credit for avoiding being captured too. Both sides had courageous men.
Outstanding work! This is by far the most thorough doc I've seen on this incident. What I would give to be in the room when those two former adversaries shook hands. RESPECT!
Yup, tech can only take you so far... You'd think the top military leaders in a country as experienced in warfare as The US, would understand that by now, but history repeats itself when they get complacent and fail to make sure their tactics are as well thought out as the tech implements used to acheive their goals. No wonder really, as many of them just become blind once they reach a position of power, and think that any order they give is perfect.
Lol, nice video, bit he wasn't flying over any mountains, i can tell u that, the plane was shot down over Vojvodina, that's southern panonia, it's flat as it gets 😂😂
Yeah you only heard the lies from the same old tiny hat wearing people running the media as usual. They lied about Serbia, they were just protecting themselves from the same people who destroyed Syria.
Why would that be strange? We serbs were not brainwashed about Americans being our enemy. Our enemy was the current administration in USA not the Americans or American people. In fact we were allies far more times than enemies.
They conceded after 11 weeks of bombing... NATO run out of military target after 10 days-so they turned to factories, bridges over small rivers, power grid., occasionally "missing" intended targets while "accidentally" hitting apartment complex that housed famillies of military officers... Basicly a terror bombing campaign
What little old Serbia with outdated military hardware against the world most powerful, massive & most technologically advanced fighting force the world has ever had. I know if those odds were against the US they wouldn't last 2mins & you have the nerve to ridicule them. You're f**King clueless
I just think it shows the effectiveness of Soviet-bloc training and equipment, the fact the well-trained commander knew how to utilize every factor and piece of information at his disposal. It was an up-yours moment for complacent NATO looking at Yugoslavia as second-rate in training and personnel and conducting operations as such.
I was 4 years old and this gave me such a terrible goosebumps. It is crazy how innocent childhood can turn into gruesome nightmare. Fuck war and everyone who supports it
8:37 mark: "Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible." Hey, as an American, I can totally appreciate a burn like that.😉 lol But at least the pilot didn't die, and it was pretty cool to learn that he (the pilot) and the Colonel wound up becoming friends later on. Interesting video to say the least, keep up the great work!👍🏻👍🏻 And while the Colonel may have woken up feeling lucky that day, it was anything but luck that brought the plane down.
well, we have to put some burns where we can :), also i don't know why people would think that the pilot would be harmed, you may not know but we are still civilized people that hold honor in very high regard
Thanks again to MagellanTV for being such a great supporter of Dark Docs. Check out over 2,000 documentaries and get your one-month free trial here: try.magellantv.com/darkdocs. Be sure to watch "Sinking a Destroyer" to find out which branch of the military is best at sinking a warship. (And stay tuned... I actually just finished a story outline that explores the US Navy and Air Force rivalry for a new video.)
You're so close to 500k subs, early congrats
Just a little question, what's the music in your « Gloster Meteor - The Only Allied Jet to Fight in WW2 » video on Dark Skies? Thanks!
btw love your videos!
I heard that Colonel backstory before. Didn’t know he had his own intelligence network. He was a one man army. How they listen to NATO communication traffic? Wasn’t it encrypted?
Great material. PLEASE SPEAK SLOWER... (just a bit). FYI, not "dark" docs... "Military history docs".
@Jim The Raspberry, I just wish he'd slow down at bit. Slurring words together isn't very pleasing to listen to. So many people complain about his fast "run on/auctioneer" speaking but he doesn't check comments or care about his viewers. Could be a really good channel. I guess he wasn't educated properly on public speaking?
"Sorry we didn't know it was invisible"
That's some OG trolling right there
What is 'OG' ?
F-117 is old, first flight 1983, last built 1991, retired 15 years ago. B-2 is the new, and B-21 will be next
@@MidwestDIY You're super correct, depending on what DARPA is working at, don't underestimate the US Military Industrial Complex!
@@fisophia1734 'OG' is a 'street' or "slang" term used in what will be, within a reasonable timeframe, a definition considered colloquial for 'Original Gansster".
@@MidwestDIY B-2 also downed by Serbia.F-16 also downed by Serbia
Fun fact: A local farmer used part of the wreckage that fell onto his property as a doghouse for about 10 years afterwards.
That was the F-16's canopy that was used as a house for the dog.
Stealth doghouse 😂
Stealth coating in F-117 is consist a hazard material for living being,even when in maintainance,the engineer need to wear a special suit to protect themself from the coating material.
@@gaecynt4687 go tile teams!
@@gaecynt4687 clearly the dog lived for 10 years plus. So it’s clearly not that bad
Good on the pilot for recognizing another man doing his duty and showing respect instead of hate. Neat piece of history. *edit* -Sheesh, the dude who got shot down is less angry than some of the people in this comment chain. Learn from his example. Acknowledging service to ones nation (exemplary at that, he bested the unbeatable) can be separate from showing approval for the broader actions by the nation being served.
Hear hear.
@@maddad418 how rude! It was two mens acknowledgment of their service. Not some commentary on the right and wrongs of war. You leftie shit.
@@maddad418 oh christ! Yup your subbed to the young turks! Shame on you
@@maddad418 at least lock down your channel and hide your shame
Mad Dad lots of Germans where just serving their country. Even the US military does shady shit, but people still serve their country
Calls him "lucky" then makes an entire video explaining his brilliance.
he pretty lucky they were flying without prowlers and wasn't in a vulnerable position
@@chinookh4713 was
@@PipMane just realized that
@@chinookh4713 deafently lucky, without the right conditions it would of went the same way like the rest of em before
@@chinookh4713 The whole point of stealth aircraft was to avoid the nead for ECM aircraft...
When a strike group is coming with an ECM aircraft (with ECM on) it is difficult to target but at the cost of anouncing to all the radars in the region that they are coming with the huge ECM cloud. Additional downside is the need for additional aircraft and/or reduced payload. Stealth was an attempt to achieve the benefit without the downsides - although the concept brought in some new downsides of its own, such as huge development, production and maintenence costs as well as reduced aircraft performance and sensor capability (a stealth aircraft that switches on its radar ceases to be stealth).
The "displaced Albanian citizens" shown on and near the ship at 1:54 actually is an old shot showing Albanians in Italy in 1991, years before the Bosnian-Serb conflict. The F-117A was shot down in 1999.
West propaganda in her "perfection".
Someone would say it is war propaganda of British filmmaker so i do acept that , thay have to leay to enshure reason of this invasion on Serbian Teritory ! Today we`ll call that "FAKE NEWS"!
Good observation.
Why dont you try to find footage of everything he talks about.. stfu who cares?
@@thatguybob3411 Maybe you don't care because you were not bombed
"Sorry we didnt know it was invisible"
-some yugoslav guy
edit: why need a college degree on politics, history *OR* flying when you can just check the replies on my comment for *FREE*
@Howie Felterbush still us military was more advanced and powerful. But those drunk slavs shot down the most advanced plane at that time.
Stealth doesn't mean invisible, The F-117 was ALWAYS on a radar it is just hard to spot but not impossible.
@@GameMovieStudios2000 if you are drunk on rakija it doesn't count and i can't see why it's so hard for people for you to show respect
It wasn't invisible when it was shot. When it opens bomb bay you can see it better on radar
Some Serbian guy
It says the missile commander was lucky. He doesn't sound lucky, sounds like he knew his job with absolute perfection.
Yeah when i heard that lucky remark i assumed it would've been a barrage of flack that scored a lucky hit. 2 Missles, one close enough to rumble the plane and a a 2 for 2 actually bringing it down isn't a lucky shot. Its the result of a very inteligent commander fully commited to his job. It was only made possible by some lazy ass, arrogant complacent behaviour from the yanks tho. Same flight path 3 days in a row, no jamming and on a course that needed steap banking manouvers. Makes you wonder wtf all those other commanders where doing on the ground.
He took advantage of a lucky situation with skill. There was still luck involved, but no luck in the world would do anything without also knowing what you're doing. So it's a combination of both.
@@JL-cn1qi They had jamming, just not on the _F-117A_ and no E.W. aircraft present in the region.
@@peterson7082 From what I got out of it 2 counter measures they normally used where not at that instance. They flew anyway. That's complacent AF.
Yup, commander Zoltan Dani spoke on multiple ocasions about "science part" how and why they modified system. There are videos on youtube of him speaking, but they are only in serbian, without translation to english.
US: "nooooo you can't just shoot down our top of the line stealth jet using old Soviet-era defenses"
Serbia: "haha missile go nyoom and plane go boom"
Fun fact: 2 F-117s were hit, one was Downed & the other was Written-Off.
😂
@@ruturajshiralkar5566 The Serbians don't claim that.
@@peterson7082 but the Americans do.
@@ruturajshiralkar5566 Some aerial tanker seeing a aircraft having possible engine issues doesn't mean it was shot down...
Have to respect the effort he put into take a stealth jet down. Glad the pilot was ok though
Kinda funny how they called Americans overconfident....meanwhile theyre going nuts cus they got 1 plane haha :P
$111.2 million was worth it when it couldn't be seen or shot down. When it got shot down suddenly the cost seemed a bit high, that was the beginning of the end of the F-117. It's probably good the USA found out when we did that we needed even better technology. If this hadn't happened, we might not have got funding for the the F-22 or F-35 approved.
@@Scorch428 "They got 1 plane" They got one $111.2 million dollar stealth fighter, the best fighter plane in the world at the time, with a soviet era surface to air missile from 1961. Also they got more than 1 plane. They got 1 stealth fighter, but they also shot down several other non stealth manned aircraft, plus about a dozen unmanned drones. Most people don't consider Americans overconfident, but they do consider Americans ignorant, commenting on things when they don't know what they are talking about. "Got 1 plane." lol.
Btw thers a story about 3 serbian pilots who got killed when trying to take down the bombers they flew jets
Shame he survived.
Doesn’t sound like a “lucky” colonel, he pulled off the perfect ambush of a billion dollar stealth bomber with a skilled pilot. Well done to the pilot on evasion.
lok777 These were not very expensive, nominally $43 million. They were perhaps the only ‘affordable’ stealth aircraft.
Billion dollar?
Hardly.
@@kcimb I thought it was the B1 which I guess is ONLY half a billion. I am sorry, my country spends so many trillions upon trillions of dollars on unneeded guns and weapons it is very very hard to keep track. Why was this one so much cheaper if you happen to know? It appears to be the only "stealth" aircraft shot down, that may be more of a function of the US love of beating up on weak helpless countries than anything though.
lok777 the guns and weapons are needed. Do you speak German? Russian? Japanese? Forced to work on a collective farm ?
Even a b1 isn’t a billion.
Money well spent.
kcimb please. We spend more on the military than the next six strongest countries put together. It is absurd how much we have spent on the military as our infrastructure crumbles. We absolutely do not need to spend half of our nations tax revenue on the military.
Serbs said : “ We are sorry. We didn’t know, it was invisible “ :D
Only fired 2 missiles that follow the engine heat. They haven't seen the plane for is route . The plane bombed his targets . Does mean the Serb defence was good enough to trace the plane ?? Not it wasn't . Was total luck shot down it . That's it
@@luletuning3005 Actually, they ( Serbs ) locked on target, when it had bomb-bay doors open. That was the time, when the plane could be tracked. So, it wasn’t lucky shot.
@@janurbanovic67 before hitting the targets or before ?? Does mean that he was "walking" in your airspace in the heart of Belgrade . Hit is target and after fired. Does mean again that after firing the targets you fired missiles that for sure follow the burst heat of engines . If your old Russian system was efficient have been locked from the time that enter and not after have been hit his targets. Was Serbia all budget 1 of 1000 of USA military budget ??
@@luletuning3005 You Tube: The only american stealth fighter ever shot down
@@janurbanovic67 shot down after accomplished his target and was going back
He (Zoltan Dani) also says that they took down a B2, but it was crashed outside their area, so (as he says) "This was a goal taken back by the referee"
Furthermore, it was only a few bucks of worth modification on the radar to be able to detect the F117. Many country wanted that mod, but he never sold it to anyone.
Currently he owns a bakery :) Awesome guy :)
Of course, he was not alone in this endeavor, but the man, together with his comrades-in-arms, deserved great respect
the B2 was hit, the department of defense admitted it, but it limped back to base safely
@@lukam8815 cool :)
I know/heard he used longintude electronic wawes.
And novadays he make a bakery shop near Subotica/Szabadka.
Hit the rocket the airplane like the western citizenship hit the east type of alcohol ( sljijovica/pálinka).
@@lukam8815 .... not a B-2, but a second F-117 was damaged but returned to base
Yuguslavia: *shoots down F-117*
USAF: You werent suppposed to do that
Also callsigns are typically pronounced like Vega Three-One not Vega Thirty One
Pronounced VEGA TREE ONE
Yugoslavia: We didnt know it was invisible.
The Colonel did his homework properly. There was no LUCK involved here. Don't downplay his achievements because he was on the losing side.
yes, it was a huge embarrassment for the USA
I mean it flew the mission without the radar jamming support so there was a lot of luck for that to happen/ stupidity of the Air Force to let the mission continue without the support
@@itmejac6945 stupidity is not luck. Taking advantage of your enemies mistakes it's one of the first rules of war
Samuel Gordino, it was still a stroke of luck that the USAF decided to be dumb. I dare say it was skill, luck and the stupidity of the states in equality that brought it down.
@Olatunji, DarkDocs did use "lucky" at the beginning, but I believe the rest of the episode properly acknowledged his effort and results. It almost choked me up at the end learning about the pilot and the commander becoming friends. I have read similar stories of US Pilots who flew over Vietnam and Japan, later meeting rival pilots they had dog fights with. Great stuff!
Photo at 1:55 was taken in Bari, Italy in March of of 1991. It shows tens of thousands of Albanian refugees who sailed over Adriatic sea to flee their own country after domestic civil unrest that started with the fall of Communism in 1990. This has nothing to do with Kosovo War which happened 8 years later and has absolutely nothing to do with Serbia. It's pretty sad to use this photo to affirm what you are saying when dramatically talking about Serbian ethnic-cleansing and war crimes. It's almost as if something you're saying is not completely true if you resort to making in more believable with photos from unrelated events ;)
What do you expect from manipulators and liers?
Because it is all hoax. Just look at UNHCR report. The mass fleeing from Kosovo province according to that report started after the first bombs fell and not as implied in the video. Also, are hospitals, one train, chemical factory, car factory and sometimes even houses a legitimate military target?
@@gentian7162 did I say that? And 90% of them returned, what's your point? I and many other Serbs did not. The baby wing of hospital "Dragiša Mišović" was bombed, you cannot say it was a slip-up. Chemical factories pollute the environment regardless, but amplifying it with bombs tenfold is good in your opinion?
Calm down about it, this is a UA-cam content creator, and paying licensing for every single video clip for every video he makes completely unrealistic. He is telling a story that most wouldn’t know about in the first place and trying to bring light to the story itself
I like your surname LOL
Lucky my ass, that dude used his equipment to its best ability, and he studied up on stealth tech. Dude was ready and knew how to use the "outdated" equipment it had to shoot down the most advanced plane of its time. Dudes a Legend.
The clip of Zelco and the commander meeting is wholesome, nice big hug haha Love the respect shown 👏
Yeah, they were both literally trying to kill eachother, but both agree that it was nothing personal. As it should be. They were just soldiers, and once the fighting is over, they're just people.
@@DrakeKillah but for some serbian soldiers who was killed by his bombs can't never see the light of the day again
@@nightwalker9828 And your point is? If there was a way to safely take out the targets and at the same time guarantee no loss of life, I bet he would've taken that over killing Serbian soldiers any day... As I said, it was nothing personal, they were soldiers, death is an occupational hazard both for the soldiers on the ground and pilots in the air on both sides...
They both know they were close to death... They are happy because they are still breathing on this world... Nothing is more important.
Dale Zelko and Zoltan Dani with Holloman AFB tail markings now in a Belgrade museum.
The Art of War by Sun Tzu. "Never underestimate your enemy."
Also, no one ever said it was impossible. Just very difficult.
The F-117 wasn't a very sophisticated stealth plane since it was designed before curved stealth features could be designed. The best part is the key catalyst for stealth came from a soviet radio engineer, despite the massive censorship machine of the USSR, the organs failed to see the implications of his work.
Technoblade
I saw that documentary. When they went to the museum to see the plane, Col. Zelko saw some of his personal flight gear and exclaimed "Hey, that's my stuff!"
Yes...one warrior can respect another from the other side, even those with whom they were directly in combat against.
There was an F-4 pilot who shot down a Mig-21 in Vietnam. The VN pilor survived, and the 2 became friends...to the point where the VN pilot came to the US to visit and sat in the cockpit of the very same F-4 that had shot him down.
My grandfather was a RAF fighter pilot during ww2 he had a German pistol given to him by a lufthwafe pilot that my grandfather had shot down as a sign of respect
People seem to think we go to war over hatred. Its not always like that, and youve just further strengthened my opinion on it
@@alexv6119 I'd argue that....many MANY conflicts have hate of others of some sort as a beginning point....religious issues, resources, some perceived issue, etc.
@@samsignorelli yeah you're right. I was thinking more along the lines of the soldiers though. They dont get to choose their fights and like you said, most of the time they don't have have hatred. Wars do start over hate tho
@@alexv6119 soldiers go to war because they get sent. my great grandpa never wanted to fight in ww2, the Dutch surrendered after a few days because Rotterdam got decimated.
I love that they became friends in the end. It’s like shaking the hands of the guy that beats you in a good chess match.
Serbs will never forget that party.
NATO didn't beat Serbia
Lt. Col. saluting the Col. lol :)
@@ThePurplecadillac what do you mean?
@@matija3500 The pilot respected the Serb Col. rank. Classy dude, I think I would have just gone for the handshake.
Call him lucky, spend 3 minutes talking about all things he did to make sure he hit the aircraft, including a spy ring!
He was very lucky, but he had to have a lot of skill to capitalize on the situation.
i don't think it's something to boast about taking down a 80~ million dollar aircraft once
Well, he did put much efforts but one thing made him lucky, opened bomb bay in this vital moment. With closed bay target radar could not see him
@RexTech 3-f117 hit, 1 crash, 2 damaged, managed to land... 1-b2 shootdown, fall in "spacvanska šuma" Croatia... Source-Rusian intelegence agenci...
@@ЗоранХулк A true paragon of reliable information, the Russian intelligence agency
Kudos to the general who, despite knowing they were going to loose, continued to strive to do his job the best he could and hopefully embarrass his enemy in the process
I'm not surprised, the Yugoslavian colonel was very good at his job meaning he was devoted and personally invested in it. Considering when this happened, the colonel was certainly trained in the height of the Cold War, these weren't second-rate troops by any stretch.
Serbian army had confidence,they didn't even think about losing,and they would never retreat if Milosevic didn't order them,many even hated Milosevic for it,but he did it because he trusted a false promises from Russia who garanteed that resolution 1244 will be respected if Serbian army leaves Kosovo. Russian president at that time was a drunkard and a USA puppet,so he tricked Milosevic sadly.
The Nighthawk was never "invisible", just hard to detect. However, stealth cannot counter poor tactics. Slack radio discipline and repeated use of the same attack routes did as much if not more to bring down this jet.
Route Package syndrome like in Vietnam
Weapon bay was open.
Shut up nerd
@rwsthedemonking The plane had been in the valley same time and multiple days in a row...
There were a lot of factors that compounded to result in the loss of that airframe. The Tornado ECRs weren't available that night and the American EW planes weren't able to pinpoint the SAM site from a single emission, Tornado was already capable of that at that point. The ROE said, the Coalition forces weren't allowed to shoot at SAM systems on the wrong side of the border. The US SEAD element wasn't able to know, where that SAM system was and thus didn't engage. The Serbian SAM systems across the border never shot, but reported all plane movements to systems inside the AO. Laziness of always picking the same routes made it trivial to expect the plane. The SAM commander was a good officer that knew exactly, when the F-117 would be vulnerable and let it run directly into the killzone of his battery.
The nights before, the German EW pin-pointed the SAM batteries and the Americans engaged them, but that wasn't quick that night.
The nights before that, heavy jamming by the Germans
As a Serbian i would emphasize the sentence "without approval of the U.N." and thank u for that!
My friend is 2021 . You haven't stopped with your propaganda yet ?? You have enough proofs what has happened to civilians in Kosovo and not only. Srebrenica 10 thousand civilians killed in in some days with the gas given to Serbs butcheres from Dutch army to bring that poor people in a big forest and open common graves for them there. An army don't attack the civilians and Stubbs children and women. What you can do is in your DNA , you never will change
If i had to guess Lule, i would say u are muslim from Bosnia, born after '95... looking for your national identity is a nasty thing
..
@SLADKO4ik yes serbs of Sebrenica and Croatia only because they was different slaves popullation. Look sebrenica how many have died in some days. 10 thousand. Ask forgiveness to them , every one of you that here do sick politics and you ever know English
@@luletuning3005 srebrenica isn’t a genocide and don’t ever say it is or use it in an argument because it’s the biggest lie during the entire war
@@luletuning3005 Books boy, books! Not bells and flags
some graffiti at that time here "Send some more i need metal to cover pig pen"
That’s great
@Sphincter Says what? I've just wrote what graffity was saying, we all know Americans are proven great against farmers.
@@noxeradico1112 farmers with aa batteries
"down with NATO bombs" grafiti😂😂
Or"shoould we repaint or you will drop us again"
Yugoslavia had great military schools, and that colonel is probably graduated in Tito-s era.
He knew what he was doing.
Shit we were so damn lax running routes the same a few times and then opening the weapons bay in a dangerous location. They grabbed the opportunity and got it right
I am from Croatia
Actually no the Russians gave the information how to at least detect the aircraft
@Joe Al, they massacred civilians? Really? Or highly likely? My advice to you, is looking what Albania have done from WW2 to these days. What they declare and what they fought done, using possible friends......
Hrvoje Šunjić thank you! Knowing you are from Croatia really added to this conversation.
In spite of its “F” prefix. The “ Wobbly Goblin “ was a light bomber. NOT a fighter.
To be blunt. The U.S. forces couldn’t have made life any more difficult for Vega 31, if they had tried. Yet another example of “Lions, lead by donkeys” .
It was designated as a Fighter with F instead of B, so the pilots could say they were fighter pilots, and not bomber, or attack plane pilots.
ratagris21 - No, it was designated as a Fighter to mislead Russian spies and observers. But “kids today” read “fighter” and make a video calling it just that without actually knowing it’s history. Hell I bet the wiki page for it would explain why it had a fighter designation... 🙄
The 117 was a very capable stealth plane and people make it sound like it was obsolete in its role because this happened to it. The missile commander had all of the factors in his favor and knew how to use them, and even then it was still a very difficult kill to pull off. If they were used as designed and as part of a well-coordinated stealth operation, these occurrences would be almost impossible otherwise.
@@frankthespank Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk
@@frankthespank A televised documentary quoted project manager Alan Brown as saying that Robert J. Dixon, a four-star Air Force general who was the head of Tactical Air Command felt that the top-notch USAF fighter pilots required to fly the new aircraft were more easily attracted to an aircraft with an "F" designation for fighter, as opposed to a bomber ("B") or attack ("A") designation.[
Let's all remember that the Titanic was unsinkable.
What
@@random-b-i2480 outrageous!
And Kim jong-un was not mortal, and didn’t poop. Loo
Well it was supposed to be unsinkable, if they built it right. If it was been made right it would have survived the collision with the ice berg but they were hasty and cheap and ignored any maintenance needed.
Let's all remember that the only people saying that was the company that built the ship.
Damn. These guys became friends afterwards, that’s awesome...
Well not that much Serbia never wanted to join NATO so we reached Russia were our president is focused on
@@axender4508 I’m talking about these two men as individuals not the entire country lol
If Serbia would catch him Definitely he would be dead
@@shujmosham..8468 Thats false, there were captured americans during the nato agression and they were give back to the usa
@@shujmosham..8468 All NATO pilots were either saved by the SEALs, or captured by Yugoslavian Army. Except for hush hush operations of foreign special forces and mercenary insurgents. That's a whole other dimension of this war which was not much discussed about.
The commentator is spitting out words like a machine gun. Uniq style.
This video is better at x0,75 speed.
@@migounette oh good! It's not just me. Wtf is this dude thinking?
I was thinking the same. If he had only slowed down a bit, it would have been much more enjoyable. The voice itself is pleasant enough but speaking so fast makes it sound a bit strained.
People have been telling him for ages to slow down but he doesn't listen, I'd bet he'd get a lot more views if he did.
@@ike8236 yip. I unsubscribed because of it.
"wait, that is an invisible plane from the americans"
"invisible? it's right there!"
I couldn't see any airplane
Proceeds to RPG that shit.
its john cena is the pilot
Only Trump can't see it, everyone else can see it!
This dude sounds weird..
Rather impressive. When you're fighting humans, you have to remember you're also human: ingenuity is always some of the highest tech.
imagine feeling like a king of the skies then 10 seconds later you're running for your life o _o
Gotta hand it to the pilot, he was more successfull running away in a pair of boots than a multi-million dollar stealth jet :P
@@DrakeKillah you can say he was stealthier than an F117
@@m0r73n I guess his Nike's let him fly under the radar 😏
yugoslav hit him with invisible rocket.
Ни смо знали да је невидлив.
@@DrakeKillah multi BILLION.
" sorry we didn't know it was invisible"
I just love Serbian humor
Sending love to 🇬🇷
I just love Greeks
Of course,you are greek,i dont find it funny
it's not even funny. It's not like that same plane destroyed their country and their economy.
Not many other things to love about them
Yugoslavia: sorry we didn't know it was invisible
Hahaha true 🤣
@zz zz And u are proud? 28 vs 1 nice dude.....
@@KING-pc2tp Hes clearly from Balkans, probably butthurt croat or muslim dont mind him they are butthurt all the time.
zz zz Sorry, we don’t care that NATO exists any longer. And sorry you didn’t manage to bomb Serbia into Stone Age. But somehow this “Republic of Kosovo” managed to stay in the Stone Age without bombing.
Man of Mayhem we’ll said 😂😂😂
2:46 and hospitals where babies are just born.... you forgot to say!
Add TV station to list.
@@serbtesla and civilian train and civilian busses, not to mention that Albanians were also bombed on Kosovo by USA airforce.
Sad se saznalo da ima 3 kom srušena od F.117 i neznam koliko B.2 B.52 izaće i to na videlo! Sigurno ima po jedan od svakog a kriju lopuže! Polako istina ispliva kad tad na površinu! Srećna nova!
And apartment building whit civilians in it, and also they did it whit illegal depleted uranium and cluster bombs
I know you're all very serbian and angry, but that's war. War is bad. People die. It's not good.
*sorry,we didn't know it was supposed to be invisible*
"The F-117 was suppose to be invisible." The military never said that. Only reporters and UA-camrs have ever said that. Stealth fighter pilots say "The only plane that's invisible is Wonder Womans."
@@michaelrunnels7660 lol,don't even try to save this one.
@@michaelrunnels7660 the X-men have an SR71 Blackbird that can go invisible too
Exactly - the Americans tried to mislead people into believing that Stealth aircraft were undetectable (they even released footage of them in daytime operation and painted regular colours), but the truth was that they were perfectly vulnerable - if you could see them, you could shoot them down, so the aircraft were only operated at night and painted black. As this event proved, even that wasn't enough to stop the Yugoslavian colonel who worked out how to locate them at night. Oops....
MrFlazz99 That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying the US military never tried to say it was invisible, stealth only makes it harder to pick up on radar but not completely invisible.
I always love hearing about former adversaries coming together in friendship after facing off in conflict.
These stories tell me that my faith in humanity is not totally misplaced.
To me it shows that our shared humanity is in the end, more important than whatever group or country or whatnot they were fighting for.
Weirdly, to me it just makes me upset, knowing that 99% of us get along fine and still people join militaries and fight in wars on behalf of our stuck up leaders.
If people would just stop listening to politicians. . .
How amazing that he’s friends with the man who shot him down!
A lot of times enemies in war have respect for each other.
Propaganda
Böser.Stachel exactly, it was an honorable battle and they both did a good job.
Well sure you have respect for a hard fighting enemy, sometimes even love, but a war criminal guilty of attempted genocide? Somethings weird here.
@@flynnlivescmd the SAM commander was no war criminal though...
Even as someone from NATO, I must say that that was very impressive.
You look like a Filipino
You forget that you attack the nation of Nikola Tesla , the founder of radars, Wi-fi and many more. This is the grand for geniuses.
Well said brother 👏
It says on google that radar was invented by Britain.
Nikola tesla was born in the Austrian empire.
@@noobsaibot7006 Ali je Srbin 😁
Yeah he didn't invent wifi either, that was some chick I can't remember her name.
There was nothing "Lucky" about the Colonel. That was brilliance manifest.
Actually it was luck. One of the weapon bay doors failed to close which made this particular Nighthawk easy to see on radar.
@@UNSC-Saratoga they were also using the exact same flight path over the mountains every night. Not hard to hit something when u know where it is.
@@UNSC-Saratoga It didn't fail to close, he was preparing to attack.
I think the plane was shut down bye russian anti aircraft crew called russian hawks or ruski yastrebs
Chance favors the prepared, so does luck. The colonel did an exemplary job- even if its for terrible ends, absolutely fantastic work on his part.
I remember this happening. As a child I was obsessed with the F117, and how seemingly invincible it was. When I saw the images of one that had been shot down it crushed me.
Yup, I was surpised also. Initial reports said that the equipment was modified to use lower frequencies.
The equipment on the S-125 Neva Pechora was not specially modified to be able to discover the stealth.That was cheap trick from Lt. Zoltan Dani to take all the credit for the shotdown. It's very nicely documented how it all happened min by min. They say that on the Acquisition radar which they were turning on for only 30 secs. few times before relocation they Radar operator managed to spot strange signature like he had never seen before which he described as a small blury thing and he said that he thinks that he got the "invisible" cause it was unusual for other planes to fly alone.After that training took over, the plane was returning from a bombing run in the Capital Belgrade and it's not true that the bomb bay was open... They let him come to what they called the "Killing zone" and after tracking it and passing it to the targeting radar Operator, he got him instantly locked manually and switched to auto tracking while constantly giving info to the battery commander, who gave order launch first, deafening noise and confirmation 1st launched and tracking, 5 sec later command for 2nd launch and same result, both got him locked in the so called killing zone and the Pilot said that he saw the rocket comming through the cloud going for him giving him no room for evasive maneuver and very quckly huge explosion ripped the whole wing which made the F-117 going down in spiral losing altitude very fast and just he gave last position relative to "Bulls eye - predetermined spot on the map" and ejection followed... The guys didn't knew till tomorrow morrning that they shot down the Nighthawk.That's shortest i can do explaining how it went... no special things, nothing... just a cocky US commanders giving same route 3 days in a row to the F-117s with no escort and very well trained crew getting maximum with what they had to defend their sky which i can only congratulate them on the huge success. Who likes to read more can find lots of stuff about story of the same crew shoting down B2 Spirit Of Missouri who crushed in Croatia in woods and after that for weeks only millitary was present there and hundreeds of trucks were going in and out of that area taking all the evidence and just to be sure digging huge crater and taking even the soil more than 2meters deep and after cover up that became artificial lake and from that day Spirit Of Missouri was never seen flying or anywhere at US airports in hangars. One year It wasnt even on the list of military planes in active service which leads to many questions and lots of guesses and theories... sorry for the long comment and my average english... cheers
Igo drowsy Thanks I’ve never heard about the claim of a B2 also being downed, but I’ll read up on it to see if I believe the official story or not. I wouldn’t put it past the US government to have covered it up if it had been actually lost in combat,
I saw its pieces in the aeronautical museum, in a glass case just a bunch of black steel lol
Yea I'm actually kinda mad
After this incident, the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was bombed by US because some parts of F117 were stored in the basement of the embassy. The US then claimed “we were using a wrong old map”.
(even though the plot of the bombed embassy building has always been vacant before its construction)
And then they sent Ethan Hunt to recover them😂
F-117 in Desert Storm: Hell yes I'm unstoppable.
F-117 in Kosovo: Mayday! Mayday!
Big myth about the F117s on the first night of Desert Storm. They didn't fly through the Iraqi air defense network. They flew through a large hole in the grid made by US Army Apache helicopters.
It wasnt in Kosovo but in north serbia
It was in region called "vojvodina" not kosovo
I think plane crashed near village of "buđanovci", thats actually near mine home village
@A E NO........ and no. Stealth doesn't mean invisible, The F-117 was ALWAYS on a radar it is just hard to spot but not impossible. 1st Gen Stealth Aircraft just showed up small on a radar
@@Dogmeat1950 I always wandered how much it would be actually easy for radar operator to identify "stealth" plane. Like: "hmmm, this significantly smaller spot on the screen look like a fighter jet, but regular fighter jet would be much larger and brighter spot, so this must be a stealth plane."
That was so cool seeing the commander and pilot hug at the end . Imagine when they have a few beers,...
4:45 In 1991 I wrote a college paper on stealth technology that questioned the ability of B-2 stealth bomber to complete their stealth missions due to the vulnerability to be detected by long wave radars used by the Soviets at the time. This video substantiated my hypothesis by showing that exact technology was used in part to bring down a much smaller F117. Guess I deserved the "A" that I received on that paper. LOL
Send this video with this comment to your old professor, lol. He probably still remembers your paper
You might have inspired that Coronel lol
you're basically an accomplice
Good job Kevin. They also shot down Spirit of Missouri...
ua-cam.com/video/3Qi1z4vh79A/v-deo.html
I am interested in research such as yours. Can you provide some resources, or any particular papers and publications? Key concepts to look into?
"Lucky" my armpit!
If the video content is correct, the Colonel showed incredible diligence and dedication to his ambition to bring down the ghost.
The timing fell in his favour, sure, but he used it to his advantage.
I wouldn't call that luck.
Always give credit where credit is due.
Hello from Serbia. We're sorry about downing your plane, we didn't know it was supposed to be invisible. ;)
Thats OK. It gave us reason to get rid of that plane and make a better plane (F-35). Thanks for the learning experience!
@@Packer1290 F-22* all of nato had the f-35 it isn’t special when half of the world had us but the f-22 my friend is an All American ghost
has*
@@Joshjack150 I agree. I just mention the F35 because its actually closer to a F117 replacement in that it has good air to ground capabilities.
You knew it was invisible when it was bombing the shit out of you.
"Wait it was meant to be invisible? Damn, my bad man, my bad."
Nice
Banned: AimBot
“Reflect radar waves” NO ABSORB and displace, “reflecting” is the LAST thing you would want.
Anthony Hayner yeah, reflecting is what they want.
Reflecting is fine, just as long as it doesn’t reflect back to the radar receiver, that’s why aircraft have very shallow angles to avoid giving radars a 90 degree angle to reflect back to the radar.
@@MrCoolguy425
Yeah better word for the video would be deflect I think
Seems like there's a couple of takeaways: 1) that colonel wasn't lucky, he did his homework, stepped up to the plate, and delivered; 2) it wasn't the stealth technology per say that failed, much more that the fact Italian civilians could tell the enemy when the aircraft was coming.
We got 2 F-117 videos from Dark for the price of 1
That’s a crazy KDR for the stealth jets tho...but big ups to the Serbian dude from 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
"without the approval of the UN"
*What im about to do is called a pro gamer move*
2:13
War crime
Look at this dude stopping the ethnic clensing of a people is a warcrime..no wonder you live in a shit hole country
nobody gives a rats ass about the UN
@@stephenjennings7303
Isn't that the same as picking a side?
Why sugar coat it?
@@ferengiprofiteer9145 that tens to happen when some one starts to exterminate a race or religion..other countrys tend to do bad things to you
I think the best part of this story was at the end where the pilot and the man responsible for shooting him down are able to come together and forge a friendship despite being formerly on opposing sides.
Never happy to see one of our pilots shot down, but I must say I am impressed with Zelkos tactics and efforts. Glad he and the pilot were able to meet and show respect to each other.
Such a wholesome ending to an epic tale.
This the best short documentary on this topic I've seen. Hopefully showing that the pilot and the guy who shot him down are now friends, we can stop arguing about it in comment threads.
Yugoslav colonel: theres nothing on the radar.
Yugoslav private: *looks out of window* hey whats that?
Did you just say "... its sleek design,"?
Alrighty then...
Cyber truck just saying
Smooth as a uncut diamond! I caught that also.
@@MikeSmith-mp7lf ...yeah....a better description may have been to say, "...due to it's faceted design....".......
Never disappoints
Fax
@BC Bob doesn't matter too much. the idea is there. plus, how do we know if you have the right IDs anyway
Except for the super fast voice
@@RuskiWaffle put it on .75% playback speed or whatever suits you. You arent wrong tho
Imagine being known as the guy who failed the "unfailable"
And that B2 Spirit of missouri was shot down and fell in Spacvan forest in Croatia.
Hahahaha. If that is true. Why today some metal detector amater doesnt go there and try to found something?
@@dbkmk9378 (this video has English subtitles) ua-cam.com/video/3Qi1z4vh79A/v-deo.html
@@dbkmk9378 Because there is man made lake there now. This lake was made by Americans when they take out their plane there.
They made that thing permanently invisible 😅
Wasn't shot down it was hit for shure because there was some panic radio messages intercepted some say it managed to cravel to the Aviano base some other sources pointing on adriatic sea as final destination. Which not much later become only by coincidence of course a point of interest for oil company to seek a gas fields in adriatic sea, did not find a lot I mean a lot of gas but they were there quite a long time.
It just shows that when men fight men with machines, it isn't about necessarily killing the man operating it, but rather destroying the machine. This is why these two men are able to shake hands. Sure, Donnie got shot down, but he also escaped.
Ship vs ship, one wants the other to sink, not necessarily a loss of life (though largely unavoidable). Plane vs plane, plane vs missile battery, again, it is the machine that is the target.
Yeah but that plane was bombing a lot of civil targets too : /
We in Serbia see this officers actions a bit odd and ugly in some way, making friends with a pilot that killed many but yeah, now its all pretty much long passed time to be something specialy emotional about it but that wont stop yt comment wars : D
These are soooo much better when there's not an ad every 3 minutes.
Thank you
@Mark Young lol. I was literally doing the opposite of complaining... but yeah, sure.
@Mark Young holy fuck man... all that and I click on your profile and the third comment down is literally you complaining about how many ads are on a DarkDocs vid😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I fucking can't😭😭😭😭
American f117: stealth
Serbia:my soviet radar and rockets from the sixties go brrrrrrrrr
Rather simplistic.
We didn't know it was supposed to be invisible
@@taktischesgenie331 how is the comment stolen? So many people are saying it. It's all over the comment section, not to mention it's a quote to begin with.
@@taktischesgenie331 its a popular saying lul
@@taktischesgenie331 that quote exists probably before you were even born.
"Lucky"
Proceeds to explain how they knew what they were doing
Well, here in Serbia, we dont belive in INVISIBLE things
Only in Promaja... that thing is scaaaaaary xD
@@kajmak64bit76 Don't joke about that, promaja kills
@@dragutintheslav-veliki790 more deadly and caused more deaths then this American stealth bomber... like for real it's deadly af xd
@@kajmak64bit76 Only Promaja can cause Upalu Mozga
@@kajmak64bit76 We should classify Promaja as a weapon of mass destruction!
"Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible" 😂 cheeky
10:02 The best part of the whole story. Shaking hands with the guy who shot you down.
Couldn’t help having huge respect for the COL that figured out how to shoot it down.👍🏻
10:02 😭Wow...this is so heartwarming and respect to them for being tireless professional even after the war is over.
"Military targets strategi economic targets." Good one
Fun fact: They're not invisible to radar at all. Through intelligence, enemy radar placement and a ton of zig zag flying a stealth fighter attempts to slip through the cracks and utilizes the radar positions to attempt to make the smallest radar signature possible.
In other words, you can't just fly into enemy territory on a whim, as would be noticed.
Milosevic agreed to all terms imposed to him by Albright except for one that nobody would accept: the complete and unhindered access to all parts of Yugoslavia by NATO forces. That effectively means an occupation. Even Kissinger said that was over the top. NATO and Albright gave Milosevic an offer he could not accept because they wanted to go to war. Whatever you think of Milosevic, the war against Yugoslavia was illegal and also against NATO's own charter. They would use this model over and over again against other countries. NATO also redirected the bombing campaign when they couldn't crush the Yugoslav army. They were not hitting enough military targets because they hid them and moved them. So they resorted to bombing civilian targets. Not only factories and infrastructure but also open markets, hospitals, a commuter train and random houses in random villages. Extensive environmental damage was done. After Milosevic finally gave in and had his forces withdraw from Kosovo, some 200k Serbs, Roma, moderate Albanians and other minorities were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo under the watchful eye of NATO's own KFOR sent there to protect all people. In Kosovo, people are getting sick due to DU weapons used there.
I’m a submarine veteran, I admire that Colonels dedication
2:47 hospitals,schools,radio stations,national television,civil trains
Any weather a F-117 can fly in an EA-6B can fly in. Someone screwed up and excuses had to be made.
Sorry, we didn’t know it was invisible
@CR salty?
@CR oh come on now! That technology was much more advanced than the time it was developed. All of our future tech is much more advanced and has a lot longer shelf time than most. That plane was the most advanced flying that we knew of. Now the TR3B was probably around then but that doesn't count. Give them props for pulling it off. It was an impressive tactical achievement for the technology they were using. If the pilot who got shot down can show respect you can too. War is not black and white.
@CR maybe take 'er down a notch, jesus
that shit is a hilarious statement
@Meekys lol I'm an American and laughed my ass off at that comment. Obviously the pilot who got shot down held no grudge. Soldiers do their duties. Period. I would hope our own soldiers would be as creative in using equipment as they were with their missile batteries! It taught us valuable lessons as well. Sometimes a failure is needed to learn from. Gotta give our pilot credit for avoiding being captured too. Both sides had courageous men.
Why does this man speak so damn fast like bruh this isnt normal
Outstanding work! This is by far the most thorough doc I've seen on this incident. What I would give to be in the room when those two former adversaries shook hands. RESPECT!
It sounds like it was tactics, strategy, complacence, lack of security and a little bit of blind luck, is what brought down aircraft, not technology
Yup, tech can only take you so far... You'd think the top military leaders in a country as experienced in warfare as The US, would understand that by now, but history repeats itself when they get complacent and fail to make sure their tactics are as well thought out as the tech implements used to acheive their goals. No wonder really, as many of them just become blind once they reach a position of power, and think that any order they give is perfect.
The marines are obviously the best at sinking a destroyer, they can break ANYTHING. Just ask them to crew the thing, won’t take long
Dude even killing Marines won't stop them. They just go to hell to regroup.
Skip the ad 1:47 you're welcome
Thank you for doing this.
Actually I downloaded it with his link. Support the channel and learn some more history. Even though usually I’d appreciate such a comment.
If it's dark docs I'll watch an ad just aslong as it's not raid shit legions
Isnt it good enough youre getting a free video to watch why not support them by watching an add
Excellent video and summation!
I've seen it falling down. It was an impressive sight.
Really? You got some good luck
@@АнастасјаШиник Well i live in city nearby .
Lol, nice video, bit he wasn't flying over any mountains, i can tell u that, the plane was shot down over Vojvodina, that's southern panonia, it's flat as it gets 😂😂
I was alive when this went on, but except for a benefit concert on MTV, you didn't hear *much* about Kosovo
I was 11 and we heard about it all the time.
If you were only watching MTV, then it's no wonder you never heard about it.
@Yuck Foutube Definitely was all over the world news at the time 😆.
Jonathan Stoos ...you weren’t watching enough tv, I saw plenty.
Yeah you only heard the lies from the same old tiny hat wearing people running the media as usual. They lied about Serbia, they were just protecting themselves from the same people who destroyed Syria.
I spoke with a radar worker in Finland and he said that no aircraft are 100% stealthy...you can always tune the radar to pick something up :)
Wait so the guy who tried to kill a US stealth fighter pilot became friends-next we’ll see dogs and cats living together in harmony.
Why would that be strange? We serbs were not brainwashed about Americans being our enemy. Our enemy was the current administration in USA not the Americans or American people. In fact we were allies far more times than enemies.
U2 plane : I already told you
Showing off that they shot down a Nighthawk... 2 weeks later concede... LMAO
What happened "2 weeks later" and LMAO...tell me?
They conceded after 11 weeks of bombing... NATO run out of military target after 10 days-so they turned to factories, bridges over small rivers, power grid., occasionally "missing" intended targets while "accidentally" hitting apartment complex that housed famillies of military officers... Basicly a terror bombing campaign
What little old Serbia with outdated military hardware against the world most powerful, massive & most technologically advanced fighting force the world has ever had. I know if those odds were against the US they wouldn't last 2mins & you have the nerve to ridicule them. You're f**King clueless
I just think it shows the effectiveness of Soviet-bloc training and equipment, the fact the well-trained commander knew how to utilize every factor and piece of information at his disposal. It was an up-yours moment for complacent NATO looking at Yugoslavia as second-rate in training and personnel and conducting operations as such.
I was 4 years old and this gave me such a terrible goosebumps. It is crazy how innocent childhood can turn into gruesome nightmare. Fuck war and everyone who supports it
"Sorry! We didn't know it was invisible!" - Actual Serbian Propaganda
More of a patriotic slogan. Very few people liked Slobodan Milosevic in that time.
Propaganda? That is fact.
@@KING-pc2tp I meant they printed up a big poster with that slogan
😂😂😂😂 Meanwhile Zoltán Dani is a hungarian 🇭🇺
Talk faster. You're not talking fast enough. Have a few more cappuccinos.
CORNHOLIO
Ian Anderson espressos you mean?
@@neogaki More like Adrenaline Injections, lmao.
I just played at 0.75 and it sounds normal
Lol
8:37 mark: "Sorry, we didn't know it was invisible." Hey, as an American, I can totally appreciate a burn like that.😉 lol But at least the pilot didn't die, and it was pretty cool to learn that he (the pilot) and the Colonel wound up becoming friends later on. Interesting video to say the least, keep up the great work!👍🏻👍🏻
And while the Colonel may have woken up feeling lucky that day, it was anything but luck that brought the plane down.
well, we have to put some burns where we can :), also i don't know why people would think that the pilot would be harmed, you may not know but we are still civilized people that hold honor in very high regard
I feel sorry that US pilot didnt die
No mention of the fact that the Yugoslavian gained very useful information from a Iraqi Air Defense commander??? Cmon!!