A USAF RC-130 is shot down by fighters over Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew members are killed.

The Lockheed RC-130 Hercules are retired variants of the C-130 Hercules, designed for photographic or electronic reconnaissance missions.

The 1958 C-130 shootdown incident was the shooting down of an American Lockheed C-130A-II-LM reconnaissance aircraft which entered Soviet airspace during a mission in the region of Armenian SSR.

Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people or from electronic signals not directly used in communication. As classified and sensitive information is usually encrypted, signals intelligence may necessarily involve cryptanalysis. Traffic analysis—the study of who is signaling to whom and in what quantity—is also used to integrate information, and it may complement cryptanalysis.