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US Stealth helicopters refuelled in Pakistan
Sources disclose that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) investigative commission formed on the orders of Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleman is in the final stages of compiling its report of the investigation of the Abbottabad incident.
The report will contain information gathered as a result of the in-house investigation, which has revealed that all PAF radar systems and technical monitoring assets were fully functional on May 2 and no lapses of vigilance occurred that night on the part of the PAF.
The report details the sequence of events on the night of the incident. Starting with a call from the Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who informed the Air Chief of the Abbottabad incident over the phone at seven minutes past two in the morning (2:07 am).
At twenty-five minutes past two (2:25 am), ie 18 minutes later, the PAF jets were present over Abbottabad, but by this time the American operation had been completed.
The report states that the latest in stealth technology was used by the choppers employed in the raid. Helicopters equipped with such technology are undetectable by any radar in the world.
The most modern radar system in Russian technology, which is the IR13, is also powerless to detect stealth equipment helicopters, it has been revealed. No country in the world, including Pakistan, possesses or has as yet discovered a method of beating this technology by radar.
Besides the use of stealth machines, the Americans also went unobserved because of the hilly passages they chose as their route to Abbottabad. Traversing deliberately through mountainous terrain, the distance travelled by the American stealth helicopters from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to Abbottabad was almost 250 km, instead of the usual 195 km on a standard flight path, reads the report.
As the engines of these helicopters were intended to remain running even while the Navy Seals carried out their operation in Abbottabad, it was necessary for them to have refuelled at least once, other than the fact that stealth technology helicopters are not capable of flying long distances without refuelling.
Although able to refuel mid-flight, the helicopters carrying Seal Team 6 were most probably refuelled after having landed on Pakistani soil, due to the difficulty of refuelling in the air in the mountainous territory they chose to travel through.
According to sources close to the investigation, it is entirely possible that if one of the helicopter had not developed a fault and been destroyed, knowledge of the Abbottabad operation would have been obtained much later than it was that night.
The stealth technology of the helicopters renders them virtually invisible to radar technology and to those observing movement on the radar, because these aircraft are constructed of Radar Absorbent Surfaces (RAS) and also make use of Radar Absorbent Materials (RAM) - which is a special kind of paint designed to deflect radar detective rays.
RAS and RAM technology effectively means that rays transmitted by radars to detect movement, instead of being reflected back to the radar, which reads this reflection as verification of an object in its sights, are instead deflected into different directions as well also absorbed by the RAS materials, which the helicopters were constructed from.
Helicopters used on May 2 also possessed rotor blades of a unique and never-before-seen design, which ensured that the noise emitted from their rotation was minimal and again that they drew as little unwanted attention as possible.
The report recalls that to date there has been only one instance of a stealth helicopter being shot down, in the year 1990, when in a startling incident Yugoslavia shot a stealth helicopter out of the sky.
This again was not due to radar detection, but was in fact a happy coincidence resulting from an unconcealed mistake of the Yugoslavian army.
Sources further inform that it is not out of the question according to the report that Electro-Magnetics Plus (EMP) technology may also have been employed during the raid to temporarily disable communication systems around the area of the operation.
This would mean that mobiles, telephones, internet services including other electrical circuits would have been jammed and unable to function while the raid continued.
The Nation has also reliably learnt that the night of May 2 according to the standard operating procedures of peace time radar monitoring, the radars were functioning as normal and in fact also detected flights of American aircraft close to the Pak-Afghan border during the very same hours when the operation was underway in Abbottabad.
The PAF investigative committee, which is overseeing the report, was formed a few hours after the Abbottabad incident by Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleman to look into any possible lapse of caution on the part of the PAF.
The news of the formation of this committee was reported almost two days after its formation. The PAF is also understood to be compiling all facts and technical details of their operations from the night of May 2 for examination by Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal who is heading the investigative committee looking into the Abbottabad incident on the orders of the Prime Minister, as announced in his address to the National Assembly after his return from Paris.
The committee headed by Lt Gen Javed Iqbal also includes a member of the PAF, who will be presenting the detail of its own in-house investigation to the larger committee once the report is completed.
Stealth helicopters refuelled in Pakistan | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online
Sources disclose that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) investigative commission formed on the orders of Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleman is in the final stages of compiling its report of the investigation of the Abbottabad incident.
The report will contain information gathered as a result of the in-house investigation, which has revealed that all PAF radar systems and technical monitoring assets were fully functional on May 2 and no lapses of vigilance occurred that night on the part of the PAF.
The report details the sequence of events on the night of the incident. Starting with a call from the Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who informed the Air Chief of the Abbottabad incident over the phone at seven minutes past two in the morning (2:07 am).
At twenty-five minutes past two (2:25 am), ie 18 minutes later, the PAF jets were present over Abbottabad, but by this time the American operation had been completed.
The report states that the latest in stealth technology was used by the choppers employed in the raid. Helicopters equipped with such technology are undetectable by any radar in the world.
The most modern radar system in Russian technology, which is the IR13, is also powerless to detect stealth equipment helicopters, it has been revealed. No country in the world, including Pakistan, possesses or has as yet discovered a method of beating this technology by radar.
Besides the use of stealth machines, the Americans also went unobserved because of the hilly passages they chose as their route to Abbottabad. Traversing deliberately through mountainous terrain, the distance travelled by the American stealth helicopters from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to Abbottabad was almost 250 km, instead of the usual 195 km on a standard flight path, reads the report.
As the engines of these helicopters were intended to remain running even while the Navy Seals carried out their operation in Abbottabad, it was necessary for them to have refuelled at least once, other than the fact that stealth technology helicopters are not capable of flying long distances without refuelling.
Although able to refuel mid-flight, the helicopters carrying Seal Team 6 were most probably refuelled after having landed on Pakistani soil, due to the difficulty of refuelling in the air in the mountainous territory they chose to travel through.
According to sources close to the investigation, it is entirely possible that if one of the helicopter had not developed a fault and been destroyed, knowledge of the Abbottabad operation would have been obtained much later than it was that night.
The stealth technology of the helicopters renders them virtually invisible to radar technology and to those observing movement on the radar, because these aircraft are constructed of Radar Absorbent Surfaces (RAS) and also make use of Radar Absorbent Materials (RAM) - which is a special kind of paint designed to deflect radar detective rays.
RAS and RAM technology effectively means that rays transmitted by radars to detect movement, instead of being reflected back to the radar, which reads this reflection as verification of an object in its sights, are instead deflected into different directions as well also absorbed by the RAS materials, which the helicopters were constructed from.
Helicopters used on May 2 also possessed rotor blades of a unique and never-before-seen design, which ensured that the noise emitted from their rotation was minimal and again that they drew as little unwanted attention as possible.
The report recalls that to date there has been only one instance of a stealth helicopter being shot down, in the year 1990, when in a startling incident Yugoslavia shot a stealth helicopter out of the sky.
This again was not due to radar detection, but was in fact a happy coincidence resulting from an unconcealed mistake of the Yugoslavian army.
Sources further inform that it is not out of the question according to the report that Electro-Magnetics Plus (EMP) technology may also have been employed during the raid to temporarily disable communication systems around the area of the operation.
This would mean that mobiles, telephones, internet services including other electrical circuits would have been jammed and unable to function while the raid continued.
The Nation has also reliably learnt that the night of May 2 according to the standard operating procedures of peace time radar monitoring, the radars were functioning as normal and in fact also detected flights of American aircraft close to the Pak-Afghan border during the very same hours when the operation was underway in Abbottabad.
The PAF investigative committee, which is overseeing the report, was formed a few hours after the Abbottabad incident by Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleman to look into any possible lapse of caution on the part of the PAF.
The news of the formation of this committee was reported almost two days after its formation. The PAF is also understood to be compiling all facts and technical details of their operations from the night of May 2 for examination by Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal who is heading the investigative committee looking into the Abbottabad incident on the orders of the Prime Minister, as announced in his address to the National Assembly after his return from Paris.
The committee headed by Lt Gen Javed Iqbal also includes a member of the PAF, who will be presenting the detail of its own in-house investigation to the larger committee once the report is completed.
Stealth helicopters refuelled in Pakistan | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online
