Ferret missions are a deadly game of electronic warfare, in which real people are killed. The purpose of the game is to fly close enough to an enemy, and threateningly enough, to provoke a reaction. Generally, the first reaction is the use of search and height-finding radars. If the threat appears serious, missile-guidance or anti-aircraft radars may join in. Ground-control interception radars may be brought to bear, and all of this will be accompanied by message traffic, passing orders and observations.

The ferret airplane monitors, records and analyses the enemy transmissions, sometimes jamming or countering them. It works both ways; the enemy, knowing the way the game is played, also may introduce deception and try to confuse or misguide the ferret. If the ferret can be lured into enemy territory, the enemy may very well try to shoot him down. That stops the missions and, by chance, delivers some new electronic warfare equipment to the enemy.

The first loss in ferret missions along the Russian coastlines was a Navy aircraft, probably a Lockheed P2V, shot down in the Baltic on 8 April 1950. On 7 October 1952, a Boeing B-29, possibly from the redesignated (again) 72nd Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (Photographic) was shot down 6 miles (9.6 km) off Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

These were the early casualties in a Cold War which often degenerated into a hot engagement. Not only ferret and reconnaissance aircraft were attacked, but innocent commercial airliners were attacked, sometimes shot down, by Communist Bloc fighters during those years. Air France, British European Airways, Cathay Pacific, El Al, KLM and SABENA all suffered losses ranging from a few casualties to the entire aircraft with passengers and crew.

In 1954 and again in 1955, Navy ferret missions were attacked. MiG-15s shot down a P2V over the Sea of Japan on 4 September 1954, and attacked a second near the Bering Strait on 23 July 1955. The latter got away to a forced landing in American territory. In September 1958, the Russians apparently lured a Lockheed C-130, carrying a crew of 17, off its course in Turkey. It crossed the border into Soviet Armenia, and was shot down near Yerevan.