Time heals all wounds: The remarkable friendship between a U.S. stealth fighter pilot and the Serbian who shot him down



Given that they were once at war, they make unlikely friends. But, as the expression goes, time heals all wounds.

Former U.S. Air Force pilot Dale Zelko has spoken about the bond he has forged with the man who shot down his stealth plane during Nato's war against Serbia in 1999.



That man is former colonel Zoltan Dani, who was once the commander of a crack Yugoslav anti-aircraft rocket, but who now runs a bakery.

Scroll down for video



Good friends: Dale Zelko (right), a former U.S. stealth bomber pilot, uses a model F117 to show Zoltan Dani, a former Yugoslav colonel, where his plane was hit by a missile

The two men were on opposite sides in 1999, when Nato's Operation Allied Force air strikes rocked Belgrade and other key targets.



Mr Zelko flew the F117 'stealth fighter' - a warplane so advanced that it was all but invisible to enemy radar.

Mr Dani and his troops were on the ground moving from place to place to avoid being detected, low on resources and vulnerable to attack by Nato's F16s.

But on the night of 27 March 1999 Mr Zelko was more uncomfortable than usual.

Weather conditions meant the stealth fighters would not have their usual escort of 'Prowler' electronic jamming planes or F16s firing anti-radar missiles.

'I'd never felt so strongly - if there was ever a night, a mission for an F117 to get shot down, it would be this one. I wasn't surprised when it happened,' he told BBC News .

Dani commanded the anti-aircraft unit that downed Zelko's plane near Belgrade during the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbia during the Kosovo war

Zelko and Dani met a decade after the war, became friends, and are now the subject of a documentary film that premiered this month in Belgrade

The old adversaries have since exchanged visits to each others' homes - and their children and wives have also struck up friendships The two men were on opposite sides in 1999, when Nato's Operation Allied Force air strikes rocked Belgrade and other key targets

On the ground, Mr Dani was being forced to operate his equipment in 20-second bursts to avoid the attention of anti-radar missiles.

Citing Serbian electronics genius Nikola Tesla as an inspiration, Mr Dani had the equipment modified so it would operate beyond the usual wavelengths. Perhaps it was this which allowed him to detect Mr Zelko's stealth fighter. 'When it hit, it felt very, very good. Like scoring the winning goal in a football match,' said Mr Dani. The US pilot's perspective was naturally a little different. But once he had ejected from his now uncontrollable plane, Mr Zelko had some surprisingly generous thoughts. 'I thought about the Serbian SAM (surface-to-air missile) operator, imagining having a coffee and conversation with this guy, saying to him: 'Really nice shot.' I had this huge respect for him and the Serbian people.' The initial suggestion came from Mr Dani's son, Atila, who had seen footage of the U.S. pilot online. It was taken up by Serbian documentary-maker Zeljko Mirkovic, who was then completing a film about the former rocket unit commander called The 21st Second. News reports in March 1999 revealed Serbia had shot down the plane The wreckage of Mr Zelko's plane, pictured here in 1999, is now in Belgrade's museum The fighter crashed during U.S.-led NATO air raids on what was Yugoslavia, but its pilot was rescued and later returned to his base in Italy He contacted the now-retired pilot via the U.S. Air Force. And for Mr Zelko it could not have been a more welcome communication. 'As soon as I read the idea of meeting the man who shot me down, my immediate reaction was: yes, absolutely - and I became obsessed with the idea. I felt I had to connect deeply and personally with this person and the Serbian people. It became a mission of passion for me.' Several years of correspondence followed. The two former military men say they shared their stories, emotions and ideas as they worked towards a face-to-face encounter. Yugoslav army experts check the wreckage of the downed American F-117 aircraft, in the village of Budjanovci, 30 miles northwest of Belgrade

Villagers look at wreckage of the U.S. F-117 Stealth fighter shot down over Serbia during NATO air strikes

Local villagers enjoy light relief from the daily bombing raids of NATO force by dancing on a wing of the crashed US F117 Stealth bomber

That finally came last year - with Zeljko Mirkovic's camera also in attendance. His documentary about the relationship between the two is called The Second Meeting. And he thinks its story is relevant around the world.

'Our three families - Dale's, mine, Zoltan's - shared the same values, about believing in the family, believing in peace. We all believed we had the right to send the message - hope, peace - which could be accepted universally.'

The old adversaries have since exchanged visits to each others' homes - and their children and wives have also struck up friendships.

Three members of the Zelko family came to Serbia for a week of premieres of The Second Meeting. They stayed at the Dani family home in Kovin, a short distance from Belgrade.

Asked whether he could go back in a combat machine against Serbia, Mr Zelko said: 'I said absolutely not, that would be impossible. You can no longer remove the human element from it.'

Mr Dani told BBC News : 'We found a solution to this problem and we're showing other people how to do it. We're saying to people that peace is much better than war.