"Hibr flight, be advised, Suf flight of four and Kheyma flight of two are joining on you, ETE three minutes."
"Control, I don't need any more fighters up here," the leader said perturbedly. "This is a commercial aircraft with what appears to be an inflight emergency. He's not a combat aircraft. I think I can get him turned away from the coast myself-I don't need six more fighters in the area. Have those extra planes go look for the bogeys I found south of Tripoli." But his suggestion went unheeded.
Within minutes there were three different kinds of jets buzzing around the stricken American-registered cargo plane: Hibr flight of two MiG-23s, Suf flight of four MiG-29s, and Kheyma flight of two MiG-25s. The problem was, no one could decide exactly what to do about this intruder. He was obviously a noncombatant, and he was obviously in trouble. They tried light signals, but it wasn't clear if their searchlights were penetrating the smoke in the cockpit. They couldn't see inside, and it was obvious no one in the cockpit could see out.
Finally the MiG-23 flight leader switched his number two radio to the international UHF emergency frequency: "Unidentified American cargo plane, this is Hibr flight of two of the United Kingdom of Libya Royal Air Force. You are in restricted airspace and in violation of Libyan law. You are ordered to reverse course immediately. I say again, reverse course immediately or you will be attacked."
There was no answer. The flight leader repeated the message on the VHF GUARD emergency frequency; still no response. He was about to switch back to his controller's frequency to request permission to open fire when he heard a scratchy, frightened voice say, "I hear you, Libyan fighters! I hear you! This is November three-ohthree Sierra Mike on VHF GUARD channel. I am on a handheld emergency radio. Mayday, mayday, mayday, can you hear me, Libyan air force?"
"I can hear you, Three Sierra Mike," the flight leader replied. "You must reverse course immediately! In ten kilometers you will enter restricted Libyan airspace, and we will attack. Reverse course immediately! Acknowledge!"
"This is Three Sierra Mike, we have a catastrophic fire in the cockpit and we were forced to evacuate the cockpit. The aircraft is on autopilot, and we are trying to put the fire out. As soon as we put the fire out we can retake control of the plane. Don't shoot! We are a cargo plane. We're carrying relief supplies bound for Khartoum, Sudan, on an international flight plan. We have twenty-two relief workers on board plus a crew of five. Give us time to get the fire out. Over."
"Three Sierra Mike, you are flying into restricted Libyan airspace during a time of severe emergency flight restrictions," the flight leader said. "This is a wartime situation. If you do not reverse course in two minutes, I will have no choice but to open fire. You must do everything you can to reverse course or at least stay out over the Gulf of Sidra. I will be forced to open fire if you do not comply."
"Please, for God's sake, don't shoot!" the pilot cried. "We'll have control of our plane in less than two minutes! Please, stand by!"
"Think he's for real, lead?" the wingman radioed.
"I know I'd have a tough time if my cockpit was filled with smoke like that," the flight leader said. "We'll wait until he crosses the twenty-kilometer mark, then open fire if he doesn't turn away."
It seemed to take forever-the big American plane was definitely slowing down. The other Libyan fighters circled, jockeyed around, and generally tried their best to fly nightstaggered formation with the crippled American plane. No one departed-all the pilots wanted to watch when Hibr lead fired his missile and brought the big plane down.
Tripoli Air Defense Control confirmed the orders moments later: shoot to kill if the plane crosses the twenty-kilometer ring.
"Three Sierra Mike, this is Hibr flight, you are ordered to turn away now," the flight leader radioed. "I am ordered to shoot you down if you do not comply. This is your last warning." He then angled upward, clearing the DC-10's powerful wake, and started to maneuver behind the big plane. The lights of Tripoli were brilliant, filling the horizon below-he was afraid that maybe he was too late, that twenty kilometers was still too close. Even if the plane was hit, could it still glide on fire and hit the city?
At that moment, the smoke stopped streaming out of the DC-10's cockpit, and the big plane started a slow ten-degree bank turn to the left. It took almost ninety seconds, but finally the big plane was heading away from Tripoli. It was just thirty seconds-about three kilometers-away from the flight leader pressing the button on his control stick that would send the DC-10 crashing to earth.
"Too bad, Hibr flight," one of the other pilots radioed. "We thought you'd finally get a chance to hit something this time."
It wasn't funny, the lead pilot thought-he was sure that this was nothing but a feint for an attack from the south. This plane had managed to draw off nearly all of Libya's alert fighter patrols away from the capital. Something was not right here….
"I Kheyma flights, this is Hibr lead. I'm getting close to bingo fuel," the flight leader radioed. "Hibr flight is going to depart the formation and head to base. Escort this bastard out of our airspace."
"You got it," one of the other pilots said. "Suf flight has the lead. We'll stay in formation with the American until he's well away." The leader of the flight of two MiG-23s descended to five hundred meters below the American cargo plane, then turned south; a few moments later, his wingman was in loose fingertip formation.
"Hibr flight, this is Control. Understand you are declaring bingo fuel at this time."
"Negative, Control," the flight leader said. "We're twenty minutes from bingo. I want vectors to the last position of those unidentified radar contacts south of Tripoli."
Cut it kind of close, didn't you?" the DC-10's flight engineer asked as he removed his emergency firefighting mask. He collected the empty casings of the smoke signal flares he had been shooting out the window and put them in an empty canvas survival bag. "That fighter departed to get behind us to shoot our asses down, didn't he?"
The pilot of the DC-10 rechecked that the pressurization system was indeed pumping the cabin back up and that his side storm window was securely closed. "It wasn't enough time," he said. "Our guys needed another five minutes."
"Maybe we can turn back in-keep the fighters around for a little while longer?"
"I think we used up all our lucky charms on that last stunt," the pilot said. "Those Libyan bastards could've pulled the trigger just to see what color the fire would've been as we plummeted to earth-we're not going to risk twisting the tiger's tail again. It's the bomber's turn nowwe did our job." He switched to the command channel and spoke: "Headbangers, this is Three Sierra Mike, we've made our turn northbound. We kept eight bandits with us as long as we could. Good luck."
We copy, Sierra Mike," George "Zero" Tanaka responded. 'Thanks for the assist."
The second EB-52 Megafortress, with Tanaka and Wickland back at the controls, swept in at low altitude over the rolling sand- and rock-covered hills of southern Tripoli inbound toward the Presidential Palace. Wickland's supercockpit display was a nightmarish presentation of destruction: Every Libyan air defense site discovered by the FlightHawks was highlighted, and the route of flight adjusted accordingly. Because they had no standoff weapons-both of their Kh-27 antiradar missiles worked, but they had to expend both of them early on the inbound run because so few sites had been taken down by the first Megafortress-they were forced to zigzag in between the threat computer's guesstimate of each site's lethal radius.
"Coming up on a right turn, thirty degrees of bank, ready, ready… now," Wickland said, and the modified B-
52 Stratofortress bomber banked hard in response. "We've got a ZSU-57-2 site at our nine o'clock, seven miles." Wickland glanced out the cockpit just as the radar-guided twin-barreled fifty-seven-millimeter antiaircraft artillery guns opened fire-their jammers and trackbreakers did not even need to jam the Libyan radar because they were well out of range. Tracers fluttered through the air in eerie snakelike patterns across the sky-a few rounds twisted in their direction, but most of the rounds were behind them as the site's radar locked onto the countermeasures array towed behind the Megafortress. "Coming up on a hard left turn, forty degrees of bank… now." It was like being on an indoor roller coaster.