Nightly News   |  May 05, 2011

Details of US stealth chopper ricochet around globe

There are growing fears that the structural details of the downed helicopter used in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound could aid countries looking to perfect the technology. Brian Williams reports.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> while the u.s. did gain a lot of intelligence during the raid, it accidentally gave away some as well. remember the initial report, one of the black hawk helicopters used in the raid failed and was destroyed by the departmenting navy s.e.a.l.s. it almost was all destroyed and then when the world of aviation saw the pictures of the tail section that was left intact on one of the compound walls, everybody realized this was nothing anyone had ever seen before. and it's widely reported now to be the world's first glimpse at the new stealth blackhawk helicopter program. most notable, the tail rotor , the unusual blades, the dish pan style covering on the mechanism designed to deflect electronic detection. they also fly much more quietly to enhance the element of surprise. the chinese are known to be in somewhat of a race to perfect the same technology, and while the pakistanis took away the big parts, some local children were seen walking around with the smaller pieces of the chopper as souvenirs.