United States-Soviet history
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External Websites
- Warfare History Network - The U-2 Spy Plane’s Cold War Missions
- University of Michigan Press - The U-2 Crisis
- Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training - The U-2 Spy Plane Incident
- PBS - American Experience - U-2 Incident
- American Heritage - The Day We Shot Down The U-2
- Yale Law School - Avalon Project - The U-2 Incident 1960
- Imperial War Museums - U-2 and the Cuban Missile Crisis
- CIA - The U-2 Program: A Russian Officer Remember
- United States History - U-2 Incident
- Air and Space Forces Magazine - U-2 Down
- U.S. Department of State - Office of the Historian - U-2 Overflights and the Capture of Francis Gary Powers, 1960
verifiedCite
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Select Citation Style
Feedback
Thank you for your feedback
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
External Websites
- Warfare History Network - The U-2 Spy Plane’s Cold War Missions
- University of Michigan Press - The U-2 Crisis
- Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training - The U-2 Spy Plane Incident
- PBS - American Experience - U-2 Incident
- American Heritage - The Day We Shot Down The U-2
- Yale Law School - Avalon Project - The U-2 Incident 1960
- Imperial War Museums - U-2 and the Cuban Missile Crisis
- CIA - The U-2 Program: A Russian Officer Remember
- United States History - U-2 Incident
- Air and Space Forces Magazine - U-2 Down
- U.S. Department of State - Office of the Historian - U-2 Overflights and the Capture of Francis Gary Powers, 1960
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: •Article History
Francis Gary Powers
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- Date:
- May 5, 1960 - May 17, 1960
- Participants:
- Soviet Union
- United States
- Context:
- Cold War
- Key People:
- Allen W. Dulles
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Nikita Khrushchev
- Francis Gary Powers
See all related content →
Top Questions
Where was the U-2 plane shot down?
Where was the U-2 plane shot down?
United States aircraft U-2 was shot down on May 1, 1960, over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), U.S.S.R.
What was the U-2 Incident?
What was the U-2 Incident?
The U-2 incident was a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began with the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union in 1960 and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France.
Who was the pilot captured during the U-2 incident?
Who was the pilot captured during the U-2 incident?
U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers was captured while on a reconnaissance flight. On May 7, 1960, Nikita S. Khrushchev revealed that Powers had parachuted to safety, was alive and well in Moscow, and had testified that he had taken off from Peshawar.
What happened to Francis Gary Powers?
What happened to Francis Gary Powers?
Francis Gary Powers was tried (August 17–19, 1960) and sentenced to 10 years’ confinement by the Soviets, but he was exchanged for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel on February 10, 1962.
U-2 Incident, (1960), confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that began with the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane over the Soviet Union and that caused the collapse of a summit conference in Paris between the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France.
On May 5, 1960, the Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev told the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. that an American spy plane had been shot down on May 1 over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), referring to the flight as an “aggressive act” by the United States.
Cold War Events
On May 7 he revealed that the pilot of the plane, Francis Gary Powers, had parachuted to safety, was alive and well in Moscow, and had testified that he had taken off from Peshawar, in Pakistan, with the mission of flying across the Soviet Union over the Aral Sea and via Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Arkhangelsk, and Murmansk to Bodø military airfield in Norway, collecting intelligence information en route. Powers admitted working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
On May 7 the United States stated that there had been no authorization for any such flight as Khrushchev had described, although a U-2 probably had flown over Soviet territory. The Soviet Union refused to accept that the U.S. government had had no knowledge of the flights and on May 13 sent protest notes to Turkey, Pakistan, and Norway, which in turn protested to the United States, seeking assurances that no U.S. aircraft would be allowed to use their territories for unauthorized purposes. On May 16 in Paris Khrushchev declared that the Soviet Union could not take part in the summit talks unless the U.S. government immediately stopped flights over Soviet territory, apologized for those already made, and punished the persons responsible. The response of Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, promising to suspend all such flights during the remainder of his presidency, did not satisfy the Soviet Union, and the conference was adjourned on May 17.
Francis Gary Powers was tried (August 17–19) and sentenced to 10 years’ confinement, but he was exchanged for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel on February 10, 1962.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
