HISTORY: Seven Artifacts Surrounding The 1960 U-2 Shootdown. “From his lofty perch, Powers’ had no idea of the blood-lust of the Soviet air defense forces arrayed below him. An SA-2 surface-to-air missile battery near Sverdlovsk finally locked onto Powers aircraft. The salvo inadvertently shot down a MiG-19 fighter pursuing Powers, but another missile blew off a chunk of Powers’ horizontal stabilizer, a fatal blow for a U-2C at that altitude. In a declassified CIA debriefing with Lockheed’s U-2 designer, Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson, upon Powers’ release from Soviet prison in 1962, the pilot explained exactly what happened the moment he lost control of his spy plane.”