Sounds like the P.R.C. might try and go fetch it.
Race to beat China to recover $100m US F-35 stealth fighter from bottom of South China Sea after it crash landed on aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson: Fears secret technology from America's most advanced jet could fall into enemy hands
Reminds me of when the Soviets tried to recover one of our F-14s.
I was at a push competition to make the us bobsled team in September 1976. The Navy bobsled team was made up of SEAL Team members. A grey gsa vehicle pulled up to the push track in Keene Valley, NY and spoke to the most senior member. He pointed to several squids and motioned for them to get into the vehicle.
I was assigned to the Intelligence division at Plattsburgh AFB with a TS clearance. The first thing I did when I got back to base was to go see what in the hell was up in the world that caused several SEAL team members to get snatched out of upstate NY.
An F14 had fallen off the deck of the John F Kennedy. Because I was reading raw intelligence the cause was not known at the time. What was known was that the Phoenix fire control radar and the AIM 54 air to air missiles were considered to be some of the most sought after hardware by Soviet intelligence.
Maybe
@Uncle Duke knows the true story of the recovery. I’ve read a bunch of different accounts and none of them quite match what I eventually read in classified accounts.
The Russians did try to snag it. That’s all I’ll say. I think the book “Beyond Top Secret†has a write up. I did try getting the details from the SEALs later on but even when I was alone with them, they wouldn’t talk. And I wasn’t going to discuss what I had read in the classified accounts. I just told them I knew why they were jerked out back in September.
We have a bunch more capability today than we did in 1976 with RPVs. I hope we get there first.
