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T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
Just Cause
Phil Barbee
I wrote this from some notes I made right after
Operation Just Cause. At the
time I was wing stan/eval SOLL II AC. I was also the
lead pilot for this
mission.
I was put on telephone standby a couple days after a
Navy officer was shot
and killed in Panama. Sunday evening, December 17,
1989, I got called about a
planning session the next day. In the morning I went
to the office at the
regular time. Everything appeared normal. A little
while later, a wing planner
called me on the telephone and asked if I would come
to his office. When I got
there, I could tell he'd been working all night. He
showed me what he had been
working on. I couldn't believe what I saw.
In the Air Force, and especially Special Operations
units, it seems like
we're always planning and practicing without ever
doing anything for real. This
time, it looked pretty real to me.
We'd practiced some similar maneuvers just a few
weeks earlier during a
training exercise. I was told not to speculate...I
didn't. Even if I had, I
never would have guessed this.
I was shown the plan and asked for my opinion. It
looked workable. Another
wing planner was also there. Together they had
planned out the route and
deconflicted it from the many other airplanes that
would be in the objective
area.
After looking things over, I went back to my office.
I paused in my chair to
think about what I was just shown. My counterparts
in the office asked if I
knew what was going on. I told them I knew, but I
couldn't say what.
I could not stop thinking about the plan and kept
mulling it over in my
head. A couple of hours later I had some questions,
so I went back for another
look. What and where were the threats? What time was
H-hour? How many C-141s
were involved? The two mission planners and I
discussed the plan in greater
detail. Now I had a better feeling about the
operation, dubbed JUST CAUSE.
Later in the day it was finally time for the mass
brief and crew planning
session. The primary mission planner led off by
telling everyone what our
objective was. There was a flash of hushed whispers
in the audience. As the
briefing continued, I don't think what we were about
to do had sunk in yet
among the assembled crews.
The mission commander got up next. He told us how
important this operation
was for our country. He went on to say that this
mission is the first time
C-141's have ever been used in this role, as the
"tip of the spear". The
assault would not be easy, and he expected all of us
to complete our assigned
tasks no matter what.
I'm sure he was alluding to the less-than-stellar
showing airlift aircrews
had made during a previous Caribbean operation a few
years earlier.
As he continued, he said there was a chance that some
of us would not come
back. When he said that, there was deadly silence in
the auditorium. I looked
around and saw the other crew members looking too.
Those words put a sinking
feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew my crew and
I were well trained and up
for any challenge, but we've never been shot at
before.
Next, the Wing Commander got up and said some of the
same stuff. He praised
us and told us all to be careful and return safely.
He never really said that
some of us might not ever come back, but he hinted
at it during his pep talk. I
even detected a hint of emotion as he got choked up
on his words. He really had
a large burden to shoulder.
Next, we got the intelligence brief and discovered
this was not going to be
easy. We could only plan on the worst.
After the briefing, we drew our charts, read the
mission flimsy, and worked
out the details of our task over the next several
hours. I was leading the
formation and made doubly sure every detail was as
exact as possible, for my flight's sake. Around 2000 hours we finished with
what we thought was a very good and, most importantly, a successful plan.
I was tired when I finally got home. As you can
imagine, I had a lot on my
mind. I only told my wife that I had to fly
tomorrow, nothing else. That night
I just couldn't sleep. I kept tossing and turning
all night long. The mission
details kept running through my mind. Would it work?
Would we catch Noriega and
his Panamanian Defense Forces by surprise? Would
everyone, including myself,
return safely. In the C-141, your main assets are
thorough planning and the
element of surprise; since you have no defensive
weapons.
When I finally got up it was still early, even though
I didn't have to
report until mid-afternoon. I ended up going to the
office a little early too.
After a while, I got with Haji, my navigator, to go
over some last-minute
mission details.
A couple of hours later my crew and I assembled for
the mass mission briefing. When we assembled, I could already tell
what the answer to my
question would be before I even asked. Just by
looking at them I could tell
they all had the same restless night I did. After
the briefing, we gathered our
equipment and loaded it on our ride to the departure
base. We were dead-heading
to the departure location because our planes were
flown their earlier in the
day by other crews; for refueling, loading and
rigging with the equipment
platforms.
Upon arrival, the weather was lousy. We all milled
around awhile waiting for
a bus to our mission update briefing. The bus never
showed-up, so we flagged
down and rode to the briefing in the back of a
deuce-and-a-half truck -- oh
boy!
Finally, all the crews were assembled for the update
briefing. The update
went pretty smooth. There were a few questions, but
nothing serious. Down the
hall in the mess area, soldiers (passengers in the
other formation) were having
a hearty meal of steak and potatoes which was an
Army tradition when you're
going off to do battle. It's akin to your last meal;
which for some of them it
would be. I had one too.
The plane was loaded, rigged, and fueled for a
three-pallet-sequential
airdrop -- piece of cake. We had authorization to fly
at our emergency war order
weight -- 344,900 pounds. Normally, our maximum gross
weight is 325,000 pounds.
The fuel tanks in the airplane could not hold any
more fuel.
Ground operations went smooth until taxi time. The
lead pilot of the other
formation had a maintenance problem with his
airplane. An engine wouldn't
start. The mechanics got on it, but it delayed his
taxi time which also delayed
ours. We only had 20 minutes of slack time built
into our flight; not much when
you've got 1,600 miles to fly.
The other formation's lead pilot called the airport
control tower for
takeoff clearance. The tower told him to standby,
because the air traffic
control center was not accepting any aircraft. There
was an additional delay of
a couple minutes. Finally, he used our code-word for
the operation and we were
released.
The climb to altitude was long and slow. I had never
flown an airplane this
heavy before. Each maneuver had to be slow and
deliberate so that the others of
the formation, five in all, could keep up. We
finally leveled off and tried to
catch up to the other formation. Something my
navigator and I hadn't counted on
(at this weight) was our inability to accelerate. We
were a little behind and,
at his moment, not catching up!
The flight to Panama was a long four hours. The
weight of the aircraft was
throwing off our time control and we were getting
further behind. After a
couple of hours, we had burned enough fuel and were
now light enough to gain a
little extra airspeed and begin to slowly catch up.
While en route, the formation's station keeping
equipment (SKE) kept
blinking on and off. SKE is the system used to
maintain formation positioning
in bad weather. It's also used by formation lead to
signal formation members of
upcoming events. I had my flight engineers
trouble-shooting to see if they
could find a problem, but nothing seemed to work. I
really wasn't too concerned
because the SKE was working most of the time and the
weather was forecast to be
good along our route of flight.
We chose to delay the formation's descent, to take
advantage of our higher
ground speed up at altitude. The success of our part
of the mission would
depend on us arriving over the drop zone just a few
seconds behind the other
formation.
As we approached the Atlantic coast of Panama, it was
time to begin our
descent.
Nearing our orbit altitude, I noticed several
airplanes right in front of
us. Could it be the other formation? The air-to-air
range looked reasonable,
but this was too good to be true! With all that's
happened up to now, what are
the chances of the force rendezvous working out
smoothly? Well the answer was
zero. We had not performed our time-control orbit
yet, and according to Haji,
we still needed to; because we were early. So we
began orbiting and the
distance between us and the other formation got
larger. The other formation was
not orbiting and we started getting strung out.
As we entered into our orbit, we were in and out of
some clouds. I made a
quick cross check our SKE and discovered the rest
the formation didn't turn
when directed. The plane behind us, unknown to me,
lost their SKE during the
descent. Without SKE, they were not getting our turn
signals and had no way of
maintaining formation position in the weather. The
remainder of the formation
behind number two was using SKE with the radar as
backup. I called number two
on the radio to find out what's going on:No
response! After several tries, the
pilot of number two finally called me on the
unsecured radio and said his SKE
and secure radio were out. He sounded like he was
"pinging" and I felt he was losing control.
We were at the most critical part of the mission and
the communication
problems were making mission management extremely
difficult. I could talk with
all the formation members on secure radio except
number two. After a brief
discussion with the deputy mission commander in my
aircraft, I called number
three and gave him an air-to-air ranging frequency
to find out how far away
they were. They were pretty far behind, but with
some creative navigation I
thought we could get the formation back together. I
called number three on the
secure radio and told him to take charge of the
formation members behind him
and join-up on me. I coordinated the route and the
time with Haji and sent
number three and the rest of the formation direct to
the drop zone's initial
point (IP) as fast as he could go. I kept them
appraised of our location.
In the meantime, we had completed our orbit were
proceeding along our
planned route of flight toward the IP. Approaching
the IP, my aircraft finally
caught up to the other formation. As we prepared to
slow down for our airdrop,
miraculously, the rest of my formation was sliding
into position also, even
number two. The order of the formation was not the
same as when we took off,
and I'm not sure exactly how they got the way they
did, but I was glad they
were there.
As we approached Panama City from the Pacific Ocean,
at about three minutes
out, the city was an inferno. I could see the dotted
lines of tracer rounds
coming from the ground weaving around the night sky
searching for a target. The
AC-130 Spectre gunship circling overhead was
relentlessly returning and
silencing the wavering ground fire. Enormous
explosions were off to my left,
near the Panama Canal entrance (Noriega's
Headquarters), and straight ahead at
our objective, Torrejos-Toccumen International
Airport.
We had a tight tolerance for our time-over-target
(TOT) so as to not get
blasted by the gunship overhead our objective. In
spite of all that happened
thus far, Haji was just 10 seconds early on our TOT.
Approaching the drop zone, I could see the other
formation off to my left
streaming paratroopers. The flashing streamers of
tracer rounds were
everywhere. The AC-130 was hammering the PDF base
that was directly ahead of
the runway we were dropping on. We planned to turn
immediately after the load
exited the aircraft, to avoid over flying the PDF
camp.
The drop was absolutely perfect. Right on target! We
banked sharply
immediately after the 'all clear' call and floored
both loadmasters, Mac and
Willie, who were in the back trying to close the
doors. Mac announced over
intercom, as we turned, that he saw a lot of gunfire
out of the rear doors.
During the post-drop maneuver, number five, a less
experienced airdrop pilot
reported he was taking ground fire. I hoped for the
best and honestly never
gave the mission commander's remarks about 'some of
us not coming back' a
second thought during the entire flight until that
moment.
Everything turned out all right, during the post
flight inspection after
returning to home base, one bullet hole was found in
number five's airplane,
and a couple of sharp dents in mine that my engineer
didn't recall seeing
before.
We left the objective area on our egress route and
headed for the tanker. En
route, we dialed up the assigned frequency for the
rendezvous and made a radio
call to the tanker:No response. I tried again. I
tried on the backup
frequency:No response. Thinking back, the same
thing had happened during the
mission rehearsal. I called on "guard" with a
blanket call to our tankers,
still no response. After what seemed like an
eternity, the tanker finally came
up on guard and sent me to the original frequency I
had called them on.
We rendezvoused, hooked-up, and asked for 10,000
pounds extra; because of
bad weather forecast back at Charleston and using
more fuel than planned en
route to Panama. After the initial radio glitch, the
remainder of the refueling
went smoothly. When all had refueled, I rejoined the
formation for the long
flight back home.
Though it was very early in the morning, I really
wasn't tired. Although
about an hour later it hit me. All of a sudden, I
was exhausted. I guess the
adrenaline finally wore off.
The remainder of the flight to Charleston was
uneventful. The other
formation did not refuel from the tanker, and
diverted to their alternate
instead. We were the first ones back. As we gathered
to debrief, you could tell
everyone was exhausted. The Wing Vice Commander was
there and he was very
pleased with our performance. The compound equipment
failures had caused extra
work, but the aircrews compensated like always and
saved the mission from
disaster.
It was sunrise when I finally got home. All I wanted
was to go to bed. My
wife and two sons were still asleep. I hadn't told
her what I was doing when I
left for work. While on the ground at the upload
base eating my steak, I
briefly thought that I might be the one who wouldn't
come back. Even though the
job requires secrecy, there's nothing like being
home safe and sound to lift
the enormous amount of guilt I put on myself.
I came into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the
bed waking my wife up. I
hugged her and told her we attacked Panama last
night. She was still groggy and
what I said seemed to be sinking in slowly. While
she was getting up the phone
rang. I answered it and didn't even say hello. All I
said was, 'I'm all right.'
My wife told me, while the phone was ringing, that
my mom called yesterday
after I had left. I knew it would be her calling. It
was!