The plane was part of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing and took off from RAF Brize Norton airbase in the UK.
The US position was that the plane was in international waters, and this was later corroborated by information provided by spy Oleg Penkovsky.
Eugene Posa) were missing in action, and the remains of one other (aircraft commander Maj. Willard Palm) was recovered.
[3][4] The two survivors, navigator Captain John R. McKone and co-pilot Captain Freeman "Bruce" Olmstead, were picked up by Soviet fishing trawlers and held in Lubyanka prison in Moscow until immediately after the inauguration of newly-elected US President Kennedy, when they were released by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as a goodwill gesture.
[7] In his news conference on 21 April 1961, President Kennedy was asked if the dropping of charges against an accused Soviet spy was in exchange for the release of the RB-47 aviators.