There was no time to warn this guy, no time for an intercept or visual identification. Kestrel wet his lips, prayed for a cigarette — but there was no time for praying for anything. “MC, unknown 19 passing through heading one-two- zero…”
Kestrel reached up and hit a button on his upper-left communications panel, marked simply “B,” and said, “Tiger 100, Tiger, unknown target ID 19, batteries released tight, I repeat, batteries released tight.”
Air Defense Battalion MICC,
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport
The Patriot fire control computer had already placed a blinking diamond symbol around the red caret on the radarscreen marked UNK 19, signifying that it was ready to attack the aircraft. Captain Connor reached up to his upper instrument panel and hit a button, activating a loud klaxon in the area of the Patriot missile launchers stationed at Carswell Air Force Base and NAS Dallas. He checked and there was only one blinking diamond on the screen — the Westfall airliner still had a diamond around it, meaning the computer was tracking it as a hostile but was not yet prepared to launch on it. He then pressed a switch on the lower-right corner of his instrument panel marked LAUNCH.
The MICC computer had a choice — the target was within range of Tiger 111, the Patriot site at Carswell AFB, and Tiger 136, a HAWK site at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport— and it selected the northernmost Patriot battery at Carswell, launcher number one. It took only five seconds for the order to be relayed via microwave to the Engagement Control Center van at Carswell, which selected the proper launcher, activated the first two missiles, dumped the initial targeting information to the missiles’ guidance units, released the safeties, and fired the solid rocket motor on missile number one. The first missile’s motor blew out a protective fiberglass rear cover and shot a column of fire and smoke out the back end of the boxlike launcher, and the missile’s quartz dielectric nose cap pierced another fiberglass cover on the front of the missile canister as the missile shot out of the launcher. The launch computer waited three seconds for the first missile to clear the launcher and for the launcher to stop shaking from the exhaust blast of the first missile before commanding the second missile launch.
Patriot engagements were always done in pairs for maximum effectiveness…
Aboard Airtech 75-D
“Man oh man, did you see that?” the copilot of Cazaux’s plane shouted gleefully. The pallet of four cluster bomb units they had just dropped on the Patriot missile site at Alliance Airport was doing an unbelievable job. The exploding cluster bombs made the sun-dried brown earth west of the runway look as if it were boiling, with tiny flashes of yellow fire erupting in a large area the size of two full city blocks. Then, one of those tiny explosions would hit next to one of the upraised Patriot launchers, and the whole unit would disappear in a huge explosion that would rock their little transport plane. After one such explosion, one Patriot missile cooked off, and the two terrorists could see it spinning along the ground in wide arcs until it skipped across the runway and plowed into a group of buildings in the northern part of the airport, causing another huge explosion and fire. “Hey, go around once more. I gotta see this again.”
“No sweat, man,” the totally relaxed pilot murmured, starting a right turn back toward the airport so he could give the copilot a better look out the right cockpit windows. “Hey, that was fun.” He rolled out momentarily, checking outside, then looked over to his copilot and said lazily, “It was nice flyin’ with ya, bud.”
“Say what?” The pilot pointed out the left cockpit window with his thumb. On the horizon, they could see a white line suddenly appear from the ground, speeding skyward out of sight. He squinted, trying to look up at its origin, but it was too high up and moving too fast to see. “What in the hell’s th—”
Launcher number one was set at a fixed 60-degree up angle, and it was pointed far to the northwest, well away from the eastbound aircraft, but Patriot didn’t need to be pointed directly at its quarry at launch. The missile quickly adjusted course, sending a white streak of smoke across the early-morning Texas sky. It climbed to fifteen thousand feet in less than three seconds before starting its terminal dive. Traveling at over twice the speed of sound, it took only six seconds for the first missile to find its target. After the hit, the Patriot engagement radar locked on to the biggest piece of the stricken aircraft, the aft half of the fuselage, and that’s what it steered the second missile into — but one missile was all that was needed.
“Splash unknown 19,” Connor reported in a monotone, detached voice. The plane — he wasn’t even sure what kind of plane it was or how many persons were aboard — was destroyed, clean, simple, and quick. Radar return one moment, the next moment nothing. Connor felt horribly tense, almost nauseated. All their actions were precisely like the simulator sessions they constantly ran — the little Patriot missile “football” symbols racing across the screen, the dotted lines showing the missile’s track intersecting with the target’s track, the “coffin” symbol around the target as the computed time of intercept ran out and as the radar tried to determine if the target was still flying. But, of course, this was no simulation. “Set HOLD FIRE all units,” he murmured, his voice barely audible over the whir of the van’s air conditioning units, “and let’s get a status report.”
Aboard Tiger 90
It was an eerie feeling on the AWACS radar plane at that moment. In the Weapons and Surveillance sections, most of the controllers were busy with their own sectors and were not aware that a Patriot missile had just destroyed an aircraft near Fort Worth, Texas. But the Senior Director and Major Kestrel, the Mission Crew Commander, simply wore blank expressions as they stared straight ahead at their scopes. The other controllers and technicians that had participated in the shootdown were on their feet, silently looking over toward Kestrel. Most of them had helped kill things before for real — but they had been SCUD missiles over Saudi Arabia or Israel, or drones over the Gulf of Mexico or Pacific Ocean during live-fire exercises, never a manned aircraft flying over America.
“Get me a status on all Tiger units,” Kestrel said, forcing as much steel into his voice as he could. “Verify all units acknowledging HOLD FIRE.” He could see the status of all his assigned air and ground air defense systems himself, but he wanted to hear it for himself, direct from the unit operators and commanders, to reassure him that he was back in control and that no one else would die unless he gave the command.
“MCC, unknown 18 is still looking for clearance to Oklahoma City…”
“I want that bastard on the ground at Meacham,” Kestrel ordered. “I want both Tango X-Ray-311 units to intercept unknown 18, and if they have to blow out his windscreen or shoot off an engine, I want that sonofabitch on the ground immediately. I want federal agents to arrest the crew.”
“It’s being done, Will,” Ian Hardcastle replied. “Marshals Service agents and the FBI are on the way.” He had been speaking on a headset to Marshals Service agents on the ground at Dallas-Fort Worth as the incident was occurring.
“Major… there was nothing you could do,” Hardcastle said. Hardcastle could see the pain and the anger in Kestrel’s face. These men were professional soldiers, trained to defend their country, yet killing was not part of their nature. It was even more difficult because it was so easy, so detached, so remote — say a word, and seconds later, men die and a very large air machine is destroyed.
“You did everything right, and you exercised proper judgment.”