The Navy Seal Team 6 commando was able to creep toward the target in silence during the mission to eliminate Osama bin Laden, using two ultrasecret helicopters, invisible to radar, which have never been seen before, according to some experts, quoted by ABC News.
In the operation to kill the leader of the terrorist network al-Qaeda, one of two Blackhawk helicopters that transported them the Seal commando team to the complex of bin Laden in Pakistan, hit the compound wall with the rotor blade and was forced to land. Because it was inoperable, the commando unit destroyed it at the end of the mission.
But photographs of the remaining parts after the explosion – the tail section, with “weird” modifications – led the military analysts to talk about a program to create an invisible helicopter, which existence was only rumored so far. A former Defense Department official, Dan Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, said he has never seen anything like this.
“It’s a first”, said Goure. “You wouldn’t know that came directly toward you. And this is important, because these (helicopters) fly fast and at low altitude and, if they not cause a noise to warn you that they come to you, you will not react until it’s too late. It was clearly part of the success of the operation”, he added.
A former special operations expert said, for The Army Times, that in addition to modifications to reduce noise, shape, generally the wreckage – the sharp angles and surface rather characteristic to stealth aircraft – is further proof that it is a modified version of the Blackhawk.
A senior Pentagon official said for ABC News that the Defense Department would not comment “at all” about the helicopter destroyed.
Bin Laden’s neighbors in Abbottabad said that they heard helicopters, the night of Sunday to Monday, only when they were just above them. Coverage of the rotors and their special design eliminates noise while helicopters are flying, said Bill Sweetman, editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International. A former advisor in the fight against terrorism, Richard Clarke, ABC News consultant, said that after taking pictures of the helicopter wreck, U.S. have reasons of concerns. “Parts of the helicopter could be on the way to China”, he added.