Flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers, the aircraft had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan, and crashed near Sverdlovsk (present-day Yekaterinburg), after being hit by a surface-to-air missile.

The incident occurred during the tenures of American president Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, around two weeks before the scheduled opening of an east–west summit in Paris, France.

Khrushchev and Eisenhower had met face-to-face at Camp David in Maryland in September 1959, and the seeming thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations had raised hopes globally for a peaceful resolution to the Cold War.

The U-2 incident shattered the amiable "Spirit of Camp David" that had prevailed for eight months, prompting the cancellation of the summit in Paris and embarrassing the U.S. on the international stage.

The U-2 "spy-in-the-sky" was allowed to use the Pakistan Air Force section of Peshawar Airport to gain vital photo intelligence in an era before satellite observation.

With the United Kingdom still reeling from the aftermath of the Suez Crisis and in no position to snub American requests, the British government was amenable to the proposal.

Using British pilots allowed Eisenhower to be able to use the U-2 aircraft to spy for American interests in the Soviet Union, while still being able to plausibly deny any affiliation if a mission became compromised.

After the success of the first two British pilots and because of pressure to determine the number of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles more accurately, Eisenhower allowed the flying of two more missions before the Four Power Paris Summit, scheduled for 16 May.

[4] The weather improved and on 1 May, 15 days before the scheduled opening of the east–west summit conference in Paris, Captain Powers, flying Article 360, 56–6693 left the base in Peshawar on a mission with the operation's code word GRAND SLAM[6] to overfly the Soviet Union, photographing targets including the ICBM sites at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and Plesetsk Cosmodrome, then land at Bodø in Norway.

[9] The U-2 flight was expected, and all units of the Soviet Air Defence Forces in the Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Ural, and later in the USSR European Region and Extreme North, were placed on red alert.

Soon after the aircraft was detected, Lieutenant General of the Air Force Yevgeniy Savitskiy ordered the air-unit commanders "to attack the violator by all alert flights located in the area of foreign plane's course, and to ram if necessary".

"[19] Mansfield, more than any other person, highlighted the dilemma Eisenhower faced—Eisenhower could admit responsibility for the U-2 flight, and likely ruin any chances for détente at the Paris Summit, or he could continue to deny knowledge and indicate that he did not control his own administration.

His plan began with the release of information to the world that a spy plane had been shot down in Soviet territory, but he did not reveal that the pilot of this aircraft had also been found and that he was alive.

With the information that Khrushchev released, the Americans believed that they would be able to continue with their cover story that the crashed U-2 was a weather research aircraft and not a military spy plane.

When I made my first report I deliberately did not say that the pilot was alive and well ... and now just look how many silly things the Americans have said.Also, because of the release of some photographs of the aircraft, there was evidence that most of the covert U-2 technologies had survived the crash.

[22] Khrushchev still attempted to allow Eisenhower to save face, and possibly to salvage the peace summit to some degree, by specifically laying the blame not on Eisenhower himself, but on Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles and the CIA: Khrushchev said that anyone wishing to understand the U-2's mission should "seek a reply from Allen Dulles, at whose instructions the American aircraft flew over the Soviet Union".

[23] On 9 May, the Soviet premier told US ambassador Thompson that he "could not help but suspect that someone had launched this operation with the deliberate intent of spoiling the summit meeting".

[26] The next day, on 10 May, without consulting with any agency heads, House Appropriations Chair Clarence Cannon received considerable press attention when he, not President Eisenhower, revealed the true nature of the U-2 mission.

The plane was on an espionage mission ... the activity ... [was] under the aegis of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, for whom all members of the subcommittee have the highest regard and in whose military capacity they have the utmost confidence.

Knowing that he was jeopardizing the Paris Peace Summit, Eisenhower decided to reveal the aerial espionage program and his direct role in it, an unprecedented move for a U.S. president.

[34] But the reaction of the Soviet government to the spy plane incident and the response from the United States doomed any potential meaningful peace agreement.

[35] At this time east and west were divided about how to move forward in Berlin, and the American press characterized Khrushchev's decision to emphasize the U-2 incident at the summit as an attempt to gain leverage on this issue.

Eisenhower also made the point that dialogue at the Four Powers Summit was the type of international negotiation that could lead to a relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union where there would be no need to spy on each other.

[citation needed] According to American broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite, Khrushchev would go on to say that this incident was the beginning of his decline in power as party chairman, perhaps because he seemed unable to negotiate the international arena and the communist hardliners at home.

At the beginning of the talks on 16 May, there was still hope that the two sides could come together even after the events that took place earlier in May, but Eisenhower refused to apologize and Khrushchev left the summit one day after it had begun.

[42] The meetings continued for four days with other allegations of spying being exchanged, as well as recriminations over the Paris Summit, and a US offer of an "open skies" proposal to allow reciprocal flights over one another's territory,[43][44][45] at the end of which the Soviet Union overwhelmingly lost a vote[46] on a concise resolution which would have condemned the incursions and requested the US to prevent their recurrence.

Accordingly, when the U2 revelations came to light, Japanese protesters felt added urgency in their drive to eliminate the treaty and rid Japan of U.S. military bases.

[57] In 2010, CIA documents were released indicating that "top US officials never believed Powers's account of his fateful flight because it appeared to be directly contradicted by a report from the National Security Agency" which alleged that the U-2 had descended from 65,000 to 34,000 feet (19,812 to 10,363 m) before changing course and disappearing from radar.

[58] In 1996, Soviet pilot Captain Igor Mentyukov claimed that, at 65,000 feet (19,800 m) altitude, under orders to ram the intruder, he had caught the U-2 in the slipstream of his unarmed Sukhoi Su-9, causing the U-2 to flip over and break its wings.

Prouty noted the U2 did not carry the advanced camera, that the U2 had previously crashed and had been rebuilt by Lockheed to non-standard specifications, and the hydrogen tank had only been half-filled, meaning it would have run out of fuel over the Soviet Union.