On 19 August 1960, 65 years ago this week, a court in Moscow handed a US pilot, Francis Gary Powers, a 10-year sentence after he was apprehended by Soviet security forces. The BBC reported on what became a Cold War diplomatic disaster.

Francis Gary Powers was on a CIA spying mission over Soviet Russia when his U-2 plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile. "I looked up, looked out, and just everything was orange, everywhere," Powers recalled. "I don't know whether it was the reflection in the canopy itself or just the whole sky. And I can remember saying to myself, 'By God, I've had it now.'"

In fact, Powers managed to parachute to safety, but his troubles were far from over. Having been arrested and interrogated by the KGB, he was put on trial in Moscow, where his family could only watch helplessly. "He said that he knew that we were present at his trial," his wife Barbara Powers told the BBC. "He didn't know beforehand. But he saw me wave. And he said he just couldn't bear to look towards the box where we were all sitting, because it upset him too much, and he knew it would upset us." On 19 August 1960, 65 years ago this week, Powers was sentenced to 10 years – three in a Russian prison and seven in a labour camp. His capture and trial would have a devastating impact on East-West relations at the height of the Cold War.

Powers was 30 at the time. A coal miner's son from Kentucky, US, he studied chemistry and biology before joining the US Air Force in 1950. In 1956, he was recruited by the CIA to pilot U-2 spy planes over enemy territory. These U-2s could fly at 70,000ft (21.3km), which was supposedly above the range of Soviet defences, and yet the cutting-edge camera on board could take detailed photographs of military installations far below. On 1 May 1960, Powers took off from Peshawar, Pakistan, with a brief to fly across the USSR and land in Norway. "The planned route would take us deeper into Russia than we had ever gone, while traversing important targets never before photographed," he wrote in his memoir, Operation Overflight.

But Soviet authorities had detected previous U-2 flights, and were determined to stop this one at all costs. MiG-19 jet fighters were scrambled, and S-75 Dvina missiles were launched. Four hours into the mission, Powers' plane was hit by one of those missiles near the Russian city of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). One of its wings was torn off, and the aircraft spiralled downwards, tail first. Powers' son, Gary Powers Jr, recounted the story on the BBC's Witness History podcast. "He thinks about ejecting – that's the first thing pilots are trained to do, that's to get out of a plane that's been damaged or crippled. But he realises that if he does eject, he will sever his legs on the way out. The U-2 cockpit is very small, very tight, very compact. In order to eject, you have to be in the perfect position to clear the airframe, or you could lose a limb."

Powers' solution was not to use the plane's ejector seat: he would simply open the canopy and clamber out. But as soon as the canopy was open, he was "sucked up half-way out of the airplane", said Gary Jr. And he was unable to reach the self-destruct button on the U-2's dashboard. "He's still connected by his air hose, so here he is, half in the plane, half out of the plane, spinning down towards the........

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