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Francis Gary Powers
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American pilot shot down flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union (1929-1977)
OverviewAI-generated
Francis Gary Powers (1929–1977) was an American aircraft pilot and spy who served as a captain in the United States Air Force. Born in Jenkins, he held citizenship in the United States and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, Lockheed Corporation, and KNBC. His career began in 1950, and he was convicted of espionage following his participation in the 1960 U-2 incident spy aircraft event.
Powers was detained at Vladimir Central Prison. He received several military honors, including the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, National Defense Service Medal, and Prisoner of War Medal. He died in Encino in 1977 due to an aviation accident. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His published works include *Operation Overflight*, *The Powers' case*, *El cielo y tu*, and *越界飞行*.
Synthesized by Vinony from 30 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 1929
- Died
- 1977
- Works
- 8
Top works
- 越界飞行
- Operation Overflight
- The Powers' case: material of the court hearing in the criminal case of the American spy-pilot Francis Gary Powers, Moscow, August 17-19, 1960. --
- The Powers' case
- El cielo y tu
via Open Library + Wikidata
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data
· 1977 · cited 63,319x
- <i>PHENIX</i>: a comprehensive Python-based system for macromolecular structure solution
· 2010 · cited 23,560x
- Dynamic capabilities and strategic management
· 1997 · cited 19,798x
- Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome
· 2001 · cited 18,613x
- <i>MolProbity</i>: all-atom structure validation for macromolecular crystallography
· 2009 · cited 13,849x
via Crossref · CC0
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1929-08-17 ) August 17, 1929, Jenkins, Kentucky , U.S.
- Died
- August 1, 1977 (1977-08-01) (aged 47), Los Angeles , California, U.S.
- Cause of death
- Helicopter crash
- Resting place
- Arlington National Cemetery
- Education
- Milligan College ( BS )
- Known for
- 1960 U-2 incident
- Spouses
- Barbara Gay Moore ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1955 ; divorced</span>"}]]}'>div. 1963 ) Claudia Edwards Downey ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1963 )
- Awards
- Silver Star Distinguished Flying Cross Prisoner of War Medal National Defense Service Medal Intelligence Star Director's Award
- Air force
- United States Air Force
- Rank
- Captain
via Wikipedia infobox
~22 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot who served as a United States Air Force officer and a CIA employee. Powers is best known for his involvement in the 1960 U-2 incident, when he was shot down while flying a secret CIA spying mission over the Soviet Union. Powers survived, but was captured and sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison for espionage. He served 21 months of his sentence before being released in a prisoner swap in 1962.
After returning to the US, he worked at Lockheed as a test pilot for the U-2, and later as a helicopter pilot for Los Angeles news station KNBC. He died in 1977, when the KNBC helicopter he was flying crashed.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Francis Gary Powers” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.