A brilliant Bombay-born engineer helped build America's deadliest ghost in the sky. Then he betrayed it. Sold its secrets to China. Decades later, the same B-2 stealth bombers he helped perfect unleashed bunker busters on Iran's nuclear facilities on June 22.
Noshir Sheriarji Gowadia, now 81, sits behind bars in Colorado's Florence, serving a 32-year sentence handed down on Jan 24, 2011. The former Northrop engineer helped design B-2 stealth bomber 's propulsion system, held top-level security clearance, and taught classified aeronautics. He was convicted of espionage after passing classified information to Beijing.
Born April 11, 1944, to a Parsi family, Gowadia reportedly earned the equivalent of a PhD by 15. At 19, he left for US to study aeronautical engineering and became a naturalised American on July 25, 1969. A year later, he joined Northrop, where he was instrumental in developing the B-2 Spirit's infrared-shielded propulsion system.
"The entire geometry came from me," Gowadia said. His internal codename: "Blueberry Milkshake". Northrop secured the B-2 contract in 1981, the bomber's defining breakthrough being its radar-elusive profile. Gowadia's work reduced visual, infrared, and radar signatures - vital to B-2's stealth edge.
He left Northrop to start his own defence consultancy in Albuquerque. He advised on CIA aircraft and nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, and in 1999, launched NS Gowadia Inc. But mounting expenses drove him to look abroad for clients - a search that ended in China. Gowadia made three trips to China, providing details on stealth propulsion. Beijing used the information to build an undetectable exhaust system for cruise missiles. His payment: $110,000. Years later, satellites picked up what looked like a B-2 clone drone at a Chinese air base.
On Oct 13, 2005, FBI agents knocked on Gowadia's Hawaii home. Seeing handcuffs, Gowadia muttered: "No." The agent tucked them away. On Oct 26, he was arrested and charged with one count of sharing national defence secrets with a foreign nation. On Oct 22, 2005, he wrote his final confession: "On reflection what I did was wrong to help the PRC make a cruise missile. What I did was espionage and treason because I shared military secrets with the PRC."
Gowadia was convicted on 14 counts under Espionage Act and Arms Export Control Act. His son Ashton said the jury was barred from seeing exonerating documents and vowed to appeal. Now, the engineer's betrayal resurfaces in the shadow of bombs falling over Iran. He sits in Florence, far from Mumbai - a traitor of stealth, undone by his own signature.
Noshir Sheriarji Gowadia, now 81, sits behind bars in Colorado's Florence, serving a 32-year sentence handed down on Jan 24, 2011. The former Northrop engineer helped design B-2 stealth bomber 's propulsion system, held top-level security clearance, and taught classified aeronautics. He was convicted of espionage after passing classified information to Beijing.
Born April 11, 1944, to a Parsi family, Gowadia reportedly earned the equivalent of a PhD by 15. At 19, he left for US to study aeronautical engineering and became a naturalised American on July 25, 1969. A year later, he joined Northrop, where he was instrumental in developing the B-2 Spirit's infrared-shielded propulsion system.
"The entire geometry came from me," Gowadia said. His internal codename: "Blueberry Milkshake". Northrop secured the B-2 contract in 1981, the bomber's defining breakthrough being its radar-elusive profile. Gowadia's work reduced visual, infrared, and radar signatures - vital to B-2's stealth edge.
He left Northrop to start his own defence consultancy in Albuquerque. He advised on CIA aircraft and nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, and in 1999, launched NS Gowadia Inc. But mounting expenses drove him to look abroad for clients - a search that ended in China. Gowadia made three trips to China, providing details on stealth propulsion. Beijing used the information to build an undetectable exhaust system for cruise missiles. His payment: $110,000. Years later, satellites picked up what looked like a B-2 clone drone at a Chinese air base.
On Oct 13, 2005, FBI agents knocked on Gowadia's Hawaii home. Seeing handcuffs, Gowadia muttered: "No." The agent tucked them away. On Oct 26, he was arrested and charged with one count of sharing national defence secrets with a foreign nation. On Oct 22, 2005, he wrote his final confession: "On reflection what I did was wrong to help the PRC make a cruise missile. What I did was espionage and treason because I shared military secrets with the PRC."
Gowadia was convicted on 14 counts under Espionage Act and Arms Export Control Act. His son Ashton said the jury was barred from seeing exonerating documents and vowed to appeal. Now, the engineer's betrayal resurfaces in the shadow of bombs falling over Iran. He sits in Florence, far from Mumbai - a traitor of stealth, undone by his own signature.
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