The Story of Indian Engineers Stealing the Secrets of US B-2 Bomber Jets and Selling Them to China

Liputan6.com, Jakarta A stealth aircraft similar to the US B-2 Spirit was spotted by satellite imagery on a remote runway in China.

The former exhaust system designer for the B-2 Spirit, Mumbai, India-born engineer Noshir Gowadia, is reported to have sold the secret stealth jet technology to Beijing.

As a result, he had to spend 32 years in the super-tight Florence, Colorado, US, prison after being convicted of espionage and treason.

“The entire geometry of the B-2 exhaust system came from me,” Gowadia told the FBI, as quoted by Business Today on Tuesday (June 24).

"What I did was espionage and treason. I leaked (US) military secrets to China," he added.

Gowadia's actions began to be detected in 2005, when the FBI raided his US$3.5 million luxury villa in Maui, Hawaii.

Inside the villa, investigators found hundreds of classified documents, stealth technology blueprints, and electronic communication recordings that pointed directly to the Chinese government.

Gowadia, who used to work at Northrop Grumman-the, the company that makes the B-2, is known to have made a series of secret trips to cities like Chengdu and Shenzhen, two important centers of China's defense industry.

There, he gave presentations to Chinese officials on how to hide cruise missiles from radar and infrared detection.

In return, he received more than US$110,000, which was disguised through offshore bank accounts, including in Switzerland.

At the time, US prosecutors warned that the leak could potentially create China's next generation of stealth weapons. Now, those concerns have been borne out.

On May 14, 2025, satellite imagery from the defense website The War Zone captured the presence of a stealth aircraft with a “flying wing” design at China's secret military base in Malan, Xinjiang.

With a 52-meter wingspan, no vertical tail, and a bat-like shape - the aircraft looks almost identical to the B-2 Spirit.

Analysts believe the aircraft is not just a prototype, but a high-altitude stealth drone (HALE) that is likely to serve as a technology test for the H-20 project, China's long-rumored long-range strategic bomber, which has never been publicly seen until now.

With a new hangar, enhanced protection, and a location near nuclear infrastructure, the presence of the aircraft signals the early stages of operationalizing a new stealth weapon system.