Shadow Flight

Epilogue

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Matthews was the only witness to the crash of Shadow 37.

He was hanging from his parachute, descending in the cold rain, when the Stealth bomber exploded three miles away. The flash and low, rolling rumble startled the B-2 pilot as he prepared his life raft for entry into the storm-tossed ocean. Matthews plunged into the ice-cold water, gasping for air as his windswept parachute dragged him over 200 yards through the towering waves. He swallowed two gulps of seawater before he could release the parachute risers.

Freeing himself from the parachute canopy, he struggled into the one-man raft, shivering uncontrollably until he was able to zip the raft's rubber and nylon cover closed around his neck.

Sundowner One, hit by the Soviet air-to-air missile, trailed flames from its starboard side until the pilot secured the right engine. The blazing fire went out after the engine fuel and hydraulic systems were stopcocked.

The F-14 limped back to the USS Carl Vinson where the crew discovered the right main landing gear was jammed in the up position. After repeated attempts to deploy the landing gear the crew faced the inevitable; they would have to abandon the wounded Tomcat.

The pilot, who was the operations officer of VF-111, conferred with the Air Boss, briefed his radar intercept officer, then flew by the carrier and made a controlled ejection 300 yards to the left of the bridge.

Both men arced through the freezing rain, separated from their seats, then stopped in midair as their parachutes opened. They watched the F-14, nose down, dive into the mountainous waves and disappear.

The radar intercept officer, followed by the pilot, splashed down. Quickly releasing their parachutes, they fought to keep their heads above water as the giant waves washed over them.

Overhead, an SH-3 Sea King plane-guard helicopter pitched and rolled as the pilot wrestled the controls. Seconds later, a rescue harness was lowered to the F-14 crew.

The RIO grabbed the sling in a death-grip, placed it over his head and slipped the collar under his armpits. The hoist operator immediately raised the officer to the helicopter's open hatch, helped him in, then lowered the harness to the other crewman.

The pilot, freezing and exhausted, tried in vain to don the collar as it skipped across the swells. The hoist operator, seeing that the pilot was in jeopardy, ordered the swimmer into the water.

The rescue specialist, wearing a thick wetsuit, leaped from the Sea King and assisted the fatigued pilot into the elusive harness. The hoist operator quickly plucked the pilot from the water and again lowered the sling. The swimmer was then winched up to the hatch while the Sea King headed for the Carl Vinson.

Both Tomcat crewmen were returned to flight status forty-eight hours later.

American and Soviet carrier aircraft separated without further escalations in hostilities, but tensions remained high as both sides evaluated the situation.

The message traffic increased threefold during the two hours after the air-to-air missile attack. Both governments voiced cautious apologies and encouraged open discussions to prevent further incidents.

Aircraft from Carl Vinson, supplemented by a variety of airplanes from Alaska, continued the search for the Stealth bomber.

Three hours after Shadow 37 had actually crashed, with the weather worsening and darkness approaching, the search was cancelled. By that time, if it had not crashed, the commanders agreed, it would have already landed on Russian soil.

Twenty-five minutes after the search was terminated, a White House message was sent to the task force commander who was on the Carl Vinson. The message stated that the president of the Soviet Union had guaranteed the safe and expeditious return of the crew and the aircraft if the bomber was found to have landed anywhere in Russia.

Chuck Matthews, after spending a chilly night in his life raft, heard a jet early the next morning. He fired four flares, then shouted with joy as the jet turned toward him.

Matthews was surprised when the Sukhoi Su-27 pilot circled the raft twice and rocked his wings. The Russian fighter pilot, flying a regular maritime patrol, radioed the coordinates to the Tbilisi and then returned to the carrier.

Fifty minutes later, Matthews was hoisted aboard a Soviet helicopter and flown to the USS Carl Vinson.

After Matthews had undergone a quick debrief, the White House was immediately notified of the fate of Shadow 37 and Major Paul Evans.

Matthews remained on board the carrier for twenty-four hours before being transported to Elmendorf Air Force Base. From there, he was flown to Washington, D. C., in an Air Force KC-135, and was thoroughly debriefed at the White House and the Pentagon. After a thirty-day leave, Matthews returned to Whiteman Air Force Base where he was promoted to squadron commanding officer.

Aerial photographs of San Julian after the air attack indicated that the Stealth hangar had been gutted by fire. The Joint Chiefs assessed the damage and concluded that the tapes that Matthews had mentioned must have been destroyed. The Stealth was gone, but the secrets of its technology remained documented only in the United States. Nevertheless, the president of the Soviet Union publicly apologized for the B-2 affair, and pledged to prosecute the chief of the KGB. The promise was fulfilled when Vladimir Golodnikov was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the Borisovka Prison. Only a few individuals close to the Soviet president knew that Golodnikov had never reached the prison. His body, accompanied by papers with a false identification, had been buried in a shallow grave at a cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow.

Gennadi Levchenko and Natanoly Obukhov, relieved to learn that Vladimir Golodnikov had confessed to directing the rogue Stealth operation, had been returned to Moscow after the former KGB chief had been sentenced.

Levchenko was reassigned to duty in the United States and continued to work with Irina Rykhov and Aleksey Pankyev. The threesome would be responsible for gleaning critical information about the Navy's A-12 Avenger II advanced tactical aircraft.

Gennadi Levchenko, coordinating the efforts of Rykhov and Pankyev, had later established a residence close to Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. He had been pleased when security guidelines had been relaxed, allowing the F-1 17A Stealth attack aircraft to transition form Tonapah to Holloman.

His next assignment involved finding a knowledgeable F-1 17A crewmember to join the fold. The Kremlin had given the operation a high priority.

Relations with Cuba remained extremely volatile. Moscow, embarrassed and bewildered by the fiery strong man, in agreement with the United States, penalized Castro for his country's participation in the hijacking by cutting off further subsidies unless Cuba could compensate in some measure for the loss of the B-2 bomber.

However, in weekly broadcasts Castro continually threatened to sink the American aircraft carriers if the United States should provoke him again. The threat was not taken too seriously though President Jarrett kept two carrier groups in the Gulf of Mexico. The carrier air wings had remained on five-minute alert, with an airborne two-fighter BARCAP, for three weeks. At that point, having had only one uneventful MiG encounter, the president had elected to stand down from the alert five status and operate at normal tempo.

Fidel Castro stubbornly refused to agree to any restitution agreement. He renewed his pledge to perfect a single Leninist party in the Western hemisphere based on the principles of centralism. The last chapter in his reign of terror was only pages away.