The Night Stealth Fell: The Story Of Vega-31

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7 Dec 2025

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The introduction of stealth was nearly mythical. But it wouldn’t last.

Stealth technology is here to stay. With nearly three decades of service under its belt, Stealth changed the way that aircraft would operate and increased survivability to new heights.
However, stealth isn’t the only contributing factor, and while many people have heard of stealthy aircraft, one thing that isn’t as well known is the fact that stealth is variable.

It can change according to aircraft type, the radar systems in use, the aspect of the aircraft in comparison to the emitter and even the configuration of the aircraft and surrounding terrain.

While stealth is most certainly a valuable attribute, it can be fallible. Today, we’re here to talk about that one time that a stealthy F-117A Nighthawk would be lost on combat operations over Serbia. The incident would rock the USAF and make stealth critics question the value and logic of stealth aircraft.

Let’s have a look and see how the incident played out.

The Background

It would be 1999 during the Kosovo War when NATO would make the decision to strike ground targets in Serbia. With the United States leading the charge, aviation assets would be used to prosecute targets, and as the only fully operational stealth aircraft available at the time, the F-117 would play a key role in this operation.

A twin-engine aircraft, the Nighthawk, would be slightly misleading. Given an “F” designation that indicated it was a tactical fighter, the F-117 was instead a tactical bomber, designed to carry a pair of laser-guided weapons deep into the heart of enemy airspace.

It would carry these weapons internally, in an attempt to manage its radar signature, using a large bomb bay. When the time came for weapons release, the bay doors would open, and the weapon would be pushed out of the aircraft, with the bay doors closing shortly after weapons release.

It’s worth mentioning that while Serbia was most certainly not a military superpower at the time, they were endowed with a generous supply of arms thanks to a Soviet stockpile.
SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 Surface to Air missile batteries were all present in downtown Belgrade while mobile, anti-aircraft artillery systems were also present, providing an additional complication to the F-117 fleet.

While stealth would do much to protect the fleet and prosecute targets, it was vulnerable under certain conditions, and it was those conditions that the Serbians aimed to exploit.

The S-125 air defence system would ultimately be responsible for the downing of the Nighthawk. Source: Wikipedia

The Shoot Down

While today Zoltan Dani is a baker, back then he was a Colonel in the Serbian military. A trained engineer and career officer, Dani would operate a battery of the SA-3 Goa air defence system that was located on the ingress to Belgrade.

This is where things start to get interesting. Known in the Soviet world as the S-125 Neva, the SA-3 was, at that stage, determined to be obsolete by NATO forces. This was due to its elderly design, which was based on Vacuum tube technology, which gave the system a limited engagement range.

However, this wasn’t entirely true as the SA-3 would have a few features that would still be relevant in the modern world, including a long-wavelength VHF band radar and the ability to be operated in a mobile manner, increasing the system's survivability.

Dani would also operate the platform slightly differently in comparison to how he was taught. Rather than sitting in a static position, constantly radiating, Dani would elect to go mobile and operate his radar in short, sporadic bursts.

Working on the understanding that stealth was a variable, Dani would position himself on the ingress path in an attempt to locate the aircraft without giving away his own position.

On the 27th of March 1999, it would be USAF pilot Dale Zelko who would be piloting F-117A Nighthawk (82–0806) into Serbia under the callsign Vega-31.

Tasked with precision strikes on Command and Control systems inside Belgrade, Zelko would be flying into the hornet's nest, with little idea of what was waiting ahead.

As the aircraft was operating over Budanovci, Dani would be lying in wait, established and set up along previous lines that had been used to ingress and egress Nightwawks into Belgrade.

At the moment that Zelko opened his weapons bay doors, the radar signature of the aircraft increased, giving a usable, weapons-grade track, albeit for a short period only. With Dani aware that time was everything, two SA-3 missiles would be fired.

Unknown to Dani, in this instance, it would only take one.

“Sorry, we didn’t know it was invisible” is some top-tier trolling. Source: Wikipedia.

Contributing Factors

In the aftermath of the incident, there was shock, confusion and a distinct lack of understanding regarding why the incident occurred. However, looking back at the incident through a historical lens makes it easy to identify several contributing factors that helped lead to the shootdown.

While there’s no denying the way in which Dani would operate his system would be outside the norm, providing variables for which the USAF had not accounted, the reality was that USAF operating procedure played a distinct role in the shootdown as well.

The biggest contributing factor would be the path flown by all Nighthawk missions up to that point. Departing from Aviano Airbase in Italy, the F-117 crews would use nearly identical paths in and out of the country. This meant that Dani merely had to ensure his system would be located on one of these paths to maximise his chances of success.

However, the biggest contributing factor would be a systemic one, as other USAF operating procedures would leave the platform distinctly vulnerable. The “blind faith” in stealth technology, paired with the dismissive attitude that obsolete weapons provided little to no threat, meant that the Nighthawk would operate solo, with no supporting Electronic Warfare assets, relying solely on its low observable technology to stay hidden.

The last contributing factor would be a lack of COMSEC applied by NATO forces. NATO communications were good, but they weren’t perfect, and while Serbian forces lacked the ability to decrypt said communications, they could detect an increase in overall radio chatter. This meant that while they didn’t know what the aircraft were saying, the increase in chatter meant that more often than not, stealth aircraft were operating in the area.

Lastly, while the frontal stealth aspect of the Nighthawk was pretty good for a first-generation stealth platform, this changed entirely when the weapons bay doors were opened. When this occurred, the Nighthawk would prove to be vulnerable to a weapons-grade radar lock.

These factors combined would provide a perfect storm of conditions that helped lead to the downing of Vega-31

Cl Zoltan Dani was responsible for the downing of the F-117A. Dani would meet pilot Dale Zelko in the mid-2000s, with the pair becoming friendly. Source: Wikipedia.

It’s A Strange World

While wars happen, they don’t last forever, and sometimes, former foes end up becoming friends, similar to what happened in the aftermath of WW2. This would end up happening here as well.

Over a decade later, in the early 2010s, filmmaker Zeljko Mirkovic was researching material to create a documentary on the event. He arranged for Dale Zelko and Zoltan Dani to meet face-to-face, a meeting that would evolve into the 2012 documentary “The Second Meeting.”

At that point, Dani had retired from the military and become a baker in his hometown. Zelko, too, had retired from active service and was currently working as a defence consultant. When they met, there was no animosity, only mutual respect.

This attitude can be seen in one of the comments made by Zelko: “You were doing your job, and I was doing mine. We were both professionals on opposite sides of history.”

The two men would go on to develop an unlikely friendship, built on shared professionalism and an understanding of the human side of war.

They would stay in contact over the years, occasionally appearing together at public events and interviews, helping to prove the fact that, for the most part, the craziest stories are often based on the reality that is life.

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