Osama bin Laden’s recent death is riddled with mysteries, the most recent of which is the stealth helicopter used to sneak up on him.
ABC News reported that aviation analysts said commandos on the bin Laden mission used secret, stealth-modified helicopters.
According to ABC News, there were two Blackhawk helicopters that brought the SEALs to bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, and one of them scraped a compound wall, forcing it to make a rough landing. Since the chopper could no longer be used, the SEALs destroyed it.
However, what survived the destruction was captured by cameras, specifically the tail section of the craft, which had intriguing modifications. CNN reported that this helicopter has previously been unknown to aviation experts.
The aircraft has a modified tail boom, a noise-reducing covering on rear rotors, hard angles, flat surfaces, and a unique material used in stealth fighters.
“This is a first,“ Dan Goure, former Department of Defense official and vice president of the Lexington Institute, told ABC News. ”You wouldn’t know that it was coming right at you. And that’s what’s important, because these are coming in fast and low, and if they aren’t sounding like they’re coming right at you, you might not even react until it’s too late…That was clearly part of the success.”
Bin Laden’s neighbors in Abbottabad, Pakistan told the news agency that they were unaware of the helicopters until they flew directly above them. Bill Sweetman, editor and chief of Defense Technology International, commented that the rotor covering and a special rotor design suppressed the choppers’ noise.
When ABC News asked to comment on the bird, a Pentagon official informed them that the Defense Department would “absolutely not.”
