U-2 pilot whose 1960 shoot-down over the Soviet Union and subsequent capture the CIA initially denied any knowledge of, denying not only that he was CIA but that he was U.S. government at all, until trading him in a bridge-of-spies prisoner exchange. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Per John Kiriakou, after his U-2 career Powers ended up piloting a Los Angeles traffic helicopter, and was killed when it crashed.
Francis Gary Powers was the CIA U-2 pilot whose 1960 shoot-down over the Soviet Union and subsequent capture the CIA initially denied. Per John Kiriakou the agency “not only just denied that he was CIA, we denied that he was USG at all” — until trading him back in a “bridge-of-spies” prisoner exchange. Powers is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.[1]
Kiriakou: “This poor guy, after piloting the U-2, ended up piloting a traffic helicopter in L.A., and then he crashed that and was killed in the crash.”[2]
