On May 1, 1960 Frances Gary Powers, flying a U2 spy plane, was shot down over USSR territory. The Russians had been shooting missiles at the U2s for a year or more, but they didn’t have one that had the range to shoot down the spy planes—until that day. The max altitude of the U2 was still classified until a few years ago, but it was around 70,000 feet. When the CIA learned of the shoot down, they figured there was no way the pilot survived. A week later, the Ruskies trotted Powers out, alive and well.
It was a serious international incident, at a time of very high Cold War tension. There are a couple of good books about the incident.
Powers was killed in a helicopter crash in the middle 70s. He was flying for a radio station in California.
