WASHINGTON: A US former fighter pilot whose plane was shot down over Bosnia in 1995 and who survived six days without being captured was appointed to a senior Department of Defense position, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Scott O’Grady, 55, was named to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense of International Security Affairs.

In June 1995, then-Air Force Captain O’Grady became a national hero, having evaded captors for six days in a forest near Bihac, in north-eastern Bosnia, after his F-16 warplane was struck by a Serbian missile during “Operation Deny Flight.”

Ejected at an altitude of nearly 7,000 meters (23,000 feet), O’Grady suffered only a slight neck burn when he landed.—AFP