On 1 May Powers' U-2, which departed from a military airbase in Peshawar, Pakistan with support from the US Air Station at Badaber (Peshawar Air Station), was shot down by an S-75 Dvina (SA-2 Guideline) surface-to-air missile over Sverdlovsk. Powers was unable to activate the plane's self-destruct mechanism before he bailed out and was captured.

On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged, along with American student Frederic Pryor, in a well-publicized spy swap at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin. The exchange was for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher, known as "Rudolf Abel", who had been caught by the FBI and tried and jailed for espionage