A new report from the New York Times claims that in 2019, Navy SEAL Team 6 carried out a covert operation inside North Korea to plant a spying device. The mission allegedly failed, leading to the deaths of civilian fishermen, and reportedly involved the use of a “stealth helicopter.”
A high-risk mission inside North Korea, a failed operation, and the killing of a handful of fishermen. This is the sensational claim made in a recent New York Times scoop, which reports that SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron was sent to the North Korean coast in 2019 to install a device capable of intercepting Kim Jong Un’s communications.
According to the NYT account, the White House, “blind” in its intelligence on Pyongyang ahead of the 2019 Trump–Kim summit in Hanoi, gave the go ahead to an insertion of SEALs from a U.S. attack submarine positioned offshore. Two mini-subs were launched, each carrying four operators. A backup force remained offshore, including an asset described as a stealth helicopter, ready to intervene in case of emergency.
The raid reportedly went wrong almost immediately. One mini-sub landed off position. A North Korean fishing boat appeared on scene, its crew shining flashlights into the dark waters. Fearing detection, the SEALs opened fire, 2-3 fishermen were killed. The SEALs then scuttled the vessel before aborting the mission and returning to the submarine. U.S. spy satellites later tracked heightened activity by North Korean patrol craft in the area, but Pyongyang never acknowledged any incursion.
Status: Unconfirmed
At the time of writing, the story remains unconfirmed and it’s impossible to verify it. Some analysts even argue that the leak itself could be deliberate, either to discredit the Trump administration by highlighting a reckless covert operation, or to deceive the public into believing the raid was a failure when it may in fact have achieved its objectives.
Q: “There’s some new reporting on North Korea and this Navy SEAL incident in 2019. Can you say if the administration has engaged with North Korea on that incident since it happened recently?”
Trump: “I don’t know anything about it.”
Q: “Can you confirm that it happened?”… pic.twitter.com/aoWxgAZYos
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) September 5, 2025
The New York Times is widely recognized as a reputable news institution and has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other organization. However, it has also had some journalistic missteps over the years. A brief online search points to some fabricated stories by reporter Jayson Blair, to controversial coverage of the Holocaust, or more recent (2023) misreporting about the Gaza hospital incident. These “incidents” don’t undermine the NYT’s overall journalistic standing. However, as always, even the most authoritative sources should not be trusted a priori, very much in line with the “Zero Trust” concept we have often recalled.
There’s an IT Security model that should be used on social media: “Zero Trust”. In Twitter context: nothing can be trusted by default; everything should be, constantly, challenged. This doesn’t apply to info spread by accounts with no credentials only; it applies to all sources. https://t.co/Uqqa4yjB6w
— David Cenciotti (@cencio4) October 3, 2020
Assignment to SEAL Team 6 and the Stealth Helicopter
Some observers have reacted with strong skepticism toward the New York Times story. Their main point: if such an operation truly took place, it would have been classified at the highest possible level. Broadcasting the details years later, complete with specifics on units, platforms, and tactical mishaps, looks less like reporting and more like a deliberate act of sabotage disguised as news.
The narrative itself also raises some red flags. Would DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6) really be tasked with a high-profile amphibious raid inside North Korea, and just weeks before nuclear talks in Hanoi?
The alleged mission’s assignment to SEAL Team 6 raises questions too. This association may be either plausible or a red flag suggesting narrative shaping. Notably, the NYT story specifically mentions the mission being assigned to DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, together with their previous high-profile mission to kill Osama bin Laden. It must be noted, however, that the few available details about DEVGRU mention Red Squadron is an assault unit, while Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance operations, including clandestine intelligence gathering, are usually assigned to Black Squadron.
More or less the same reasoning applies to the “stealth rotary wing aircraft” that, according to the report, were deployed to support the mission. If this detail is accurate, it echoes the only confirmed real-world deployment of a stealth helicopter, the “Stealth Black Hawk” or “Silent Hawk” or MH-X, used during the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011. Our previous investigations into low-observable rotorcraft and secretive special ops make this claim particularly intriguing. Still, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt: in the context of a clandestine mission behind enemy lines, radar-evading rotary-wing aircraft always seem to be a fitting element.
Indeed, since Operation Neptune’s Spear in Abbottabad in 2011, it’s not the first time a daring special operation has been said to involve “stealth helicopters,” even though such claims have never been officially confirmed. For instance, stealth Black Hawks, described as upgraded variants of the ones used in 2011, were said to have been used in 2014 to penetrate 200 miles into Syria to support a mission of the U.S. Army Delta Force. There is currently no evidence of the use of such helicopters.
🧵 1/ The Day We Learned About the Stealth Black Hawk Used in the OBL Raid
On May 3, 2011, the world got its first glimpse of a secret helicopter—used by Navy SEALs in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Here’s the story of how we uncovered it, and how a single tail rotor… pic.twitter.com/rLzJxaQQAz
— The Aviationist (@TheAviationist) May 2, 2025
Another aspect which is worth of note, and to which the same reasoning could be applied once again, is the killing of the fishermen. This is reminiscent of a similar situation, surrounded by controversy, which some sources said was discussed during Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan in 2005, later portrayed in the film Lone Survivor. A four-man SEAL team was compromised when it was discovered by local shepherds shortly after insertion during a reconnaissance mission. The film and some sources claim that the SEALs discussed whether to kill them or let them free, something that reportedly never happened as they were briefly restrained and then freed.
For all the above reasons, separating plausible facts from fiction is quite difficult.
Summing up, too many aspects of the story remain at least murky: the exact landing area (possibly near Wonsan, where Kim has a villa and yacht pier), the number of casualties, and the Pentagon’s after-action findings of communication failures and navigational errors.
The timing of the leak, coming just after Kim Jong Un’s recent high-profile appearance in Beijing with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, adds another layer of intrigue.
Does a Stealth Black Hawk still exist?
Whether the operation happened as described, was distorted for political purposes, or was leaked as part of a deliberate disinformation campaign, one point of interest remains: the persistent shadow of the stealth helicopter, first exposed during the OBL raid yet still shrouded in secrecy almost 15 years later (possibly because it remains in service and ready to be deployed when needed).
Throughout the years, many claims were made about highly modified Black Hawk helicopter, always short of new evidence. As of 2025, the only evidence of the existence of these stealthier Black Hawk helicopters for special operations was represented by the photos and videos of the crashed helicopter after the Osama bin Laden raid.
Many photos emerged online were verified to be just photos of the mockup of the stealth helicopter used for the film Zero Dark Thirthy, which recounted the 2011 raid. Additionally, while the photos from Abbottabad show the tail section, we don’t know how the rest of the real helicopter looks like.
Some online reports mention that only two stealth Black Hawk helicopters existed in 2011 and more have been built after the raid. Other reports mention that the new helicopters are even more advanced and defined as second generation. Again, both these aspects are impossible to verify.
Similarly, multiple reports claim to know where these helicopters are based, mentioning Nellis AFB, Groom Lake or the Tonopah Test Range Airport. The same goes for their operator, with most of the reports claiming it is the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
After almost 15 years, it seems one of the biggest special operations’ aviation dilemmas will stay still unsolved. Classified at the highest levels, it is possible this helicopter will keep flying in the shadows without us even knowing what it looks like, not only feeding its mythical status, but also preventing its possible identification in a world where even a small blurry photo, shared online, can lead to the discovery of secret programs.
