Secret Stealth Helped U.S. Accomplish bin Laden Raid
Stealthy helicopters and
U.S. officials have not confirmed the type of helicopter that carried Navy Seals to the compound housing Osama bin Laden, but a stealth version of Sikorsky’s UH-60 Black Hawk might have been involved. (Photo: Sikorsky)
U.S. officials have not confirmed the type of helicopter that carried Navy Seals to the compound housing Osama bin Laden, but a stealth version of Sikorsky’s UH-60 Black Hawk might have been involved. (Photo: Sikorsky)

Stealthy helicopters and the still-secret RQ-170 Sentinel, a stealthy unmanned or optionally piloted, tailless flying wing, may have played pivotal roles in the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 1.

U.S. officials twice declined to confirm for the record the type of helicopter that carried U.S. Navy Seals to the compound. Photographs of the tail wreckage of one helicopter, which was destroyed by the Seals following its crash into the compound, show significant differences from U.S. Army Sikorsky MH-60K Black Hawk helicopters that are used to insert special forces. These include a disc covering a five- or six-blade tail rotor; modified tailboom and tailplane and a silver paint finish. Pakistan was not alerted to the raid, and may not have detected the airborne approach of the night-raiding team.