Pakistan may have let Chinese engineers photograph and take samples of the charred wreckage of the stealthy Blackhawk helicopter that crashed during the Osama bin Laden raid, reported the Financial Times. US officials say they do not have “definitive proof” that the Chinese were allowed to visit Abbottabad, where bin Laden’s compound was located, but American intelligence officials allegedly “intercepted conversations with Pakistani officials” in which they “discussed inviting the Chinese to the crash site,” reported the New York Times. Such cooperation between the Pakistani intelligence operatives and the Chinese engineers, many of whom already work at military bases inside of Pakistan, could be just one more example of Pakistan’s anger over the operation, which was carried out without the country’s approval. US special operators who participated in the raid attempted to destroy the aircraft before leaving the scene, but the tail section remained largely intact.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.