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| “Why are you flying above me?”” “Keep flying, you are my stealth technology.” |
Isn’t it the dream of each intelligence service that the state, military and trade secrets literally fly and crash upon your territory? This dream came true for the intelligence services in Pakistan when a US stealth helicopter Black Hawk crashed into the backyard of Bin Laden’s hide-out in Pakistan.
A stealth helicopter has technology to conceal its presence, and avoids being detected by radar, sonor, infrared or any other detection method. However, if a stealth helicopter crashes and then is detonated the “low observable technology” on its remaining parts is quite observable. And once the remaining parts of the stealth helicopter are not so stealthy anymore they are vulnerable to be copied.
Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute said for ABC News that what really stood out was the little disk over the rotor which is really designed to both baffle the sound and to deny radar signature, read more here. Herman Lai reports for M.I.C. about whether China is trying to knock-off the US stealth helicopter that crashed in Bin Laden’s backyard in Pakistan as a New York Times report suggests. Read here.
The intelligence forces of Pakistan deny this and the Chinese Ministry of Defense unsurprisingly replied: “This report is totally unfounded and extremely absurd.”
However Mark Mazzetti of the NYT wrote: “One person with knowledge of the intelligence assessments said that the American case was based mostly on intercepted conversations in which Pakistani officials discussed inviting the Chinese to the crash site. He characterized intelligence officials as being “certain” that Chinese engineers were able to photograph the helicopter and even walk away with samples of the wreckage. The tail has been shipped back to the United States, according to American officials.” Read Mazzetti’s NYT article here.
It might not be that absurd that Pakistan is willing to share its information on the helicopter with China, since Pakistan considers China as its best friend, read here.
The Global Post published a photo on which Pakistani boys collect the debris, see here.