Another, older voice came over the radio: “Aircraft, Derringer 070 for 75, tracking 230, this is Magic on Guard; identify yourself immediately!” This wasn’t supposed to happen. The F-16CJs, who had been in an orbit overhead providing SEAD support for us, called NAEW and departed their orbit to intercept the intruder. I could hear their fangs sticking through the floorboards over the radio. Blood was in the air, and they could smell it.
Looking back at my map, I tried to get a rough estimate of the distance between us and the contact the NAEW had identified. It was about 45 miles. Time for us to pull back a bit. We both still had all of our ordnance on board. I had two cans of CBU-87 and Rip had four Mk-82s, along with our Mavericks. I didn’t feel like getting into an air-to-air engagement with all of that on board, but I sure didn’t want to get rid of it and give the outlaw a mission kill. “Taco, let’s hook left. Line reference steer-point five.” I had given Rip a copy of my lineup card when we briefed the sortie; today, steer-point five was Skopje, Macedonia—nominally friendly airspace.
Rip maneuvered into a good defensive line-abreast position, about a mile and a half off my right side. NAEW transmitted on Guard again, directing the unknown aircraft at Derringer 080 for 65 to identify itself. There was no response. I looked down at my map—30 miles to Skopje. He was obviously going a lot faster than we were. Thirty seconds passed as I increased my scan outside the cockpit, looking across the formation and behind us. I knew that Rip was doing the same thing in his cockpit.
“Mink Three-One, Bandit, Derringer 080 for 60, southwest bound, hot!” NAEW called out to the F-16CGs. “All aircraft in NBA, this is Magic. Chariot directs retrograde.” NBA was the code word that we were using for eastern Kosovo.
Great. NAEW was now declaring the contact of a bandit—an enemy aircraft heading towards friendly aircraft. Time to make sure that both of us had our switches ready for an air-to-air fight. “Taco, check AIM-9 in Select, master arm to arm, gun rate high. Let’s push it over. No lower than 160,” I said as I traded altitude for airspeed, but still stayed above 16,000 feet.
“Two,” came Rip’s immediate response to indicate he understood and would comply with my instructions. I expected that he would have had his switches set, but I had to be sure. In the background, almost drowned out by the excitement of the moment, I could hear the low growl of the AIM-9 seeker head looking for a target.
“Bandit, Derringer, 090 for 56, southwest bound, descending, hot!” I checked the distance—about 25 miles. Suddenly, despite all the coalition aircraft out there, I felt very alone. Time to get some information from NAEW.
“Magic, Taco One, say BRAA to Bandit,” I transmitted as I asked the NAEW for the bandit’s bearing, range, altitude, and aspect.
Pause. “Taco, Magic, unable, stand by,” came the reply.
Stand by??!!! You can’t be serious! NAEW controllers had never shown stellar performance getting us information when we had trained together in the past, but at least they had given us some close control when we were at medium altitude. Now, when it really mattered—and we weren’t at Red Flag over the Nellis ranges—all they could do is say “stand by.” I wanted to reach out and wring their necks. They probably didn’t even know what my position was—let alone how close the bandit was to any of us. I increased the amount of time that I was checking six—the airspace behind our aircraft.
“Bandit, Derringer, 090 for 52, heading 240, hot!”
I looked down and checked my chaff and flare settings. We were quickly approaching the point where I was going to have to turn the formation to be ready to fight. Two green ready lights stared up at me from the panel. Everything was set. I hacked the clock and started mentally calculating the range.
“Magic, Mink Three-One. Contact target, closing for VID (visual identification),” a charged but steady voice came over the radio. It was the same voice that I had heard earlier when the F-16s had departed their holding point to intercept the Bandit. There was a very pregnant pause. I checked six again. The next call sent a shiver down my spine.
“Magic, Mink Three-One. Target is an EA-6. Turning south now.”
I was relieved, upset, and mad—most of all I couldn’t believe my ears. We had almost shot one of our own aircraft—an EA-6B—because he wasn’t in his planned orbit, and the NAEW didn’t know who or what he was. I could have been taking part in an impromptu CSAR had it not been for the professionalism of Mink 31 and his ability to visually identify an EA-6B. I had a flashback to when that had not happened—when two friendly Black Hawk helicopters had been misidentified and shot down by friendly fighters, taking the lives of Lt Laura Piper and 25 other people flying low over northern Iraq. I was also mad because we had lost about 10 minutes of our available time over Kosovo; it was time to get back to our mission.
We deselected our AIM-9s and turned north. Rip floated back to a good wedge position, and I could see him pick up the gentle rhythm of checking our six and providing cover against AAA and SAM threats. Irregularly, his jet would move—slight changes in heading and pitch angles—just enough to give him a better view of the ground beneath us and to remain unpredictable. In front, I was doing the same thing. I picked out visual landmarks that would help orient and guide me into the target area. It gave us something to do while the adrenaline worked its way out of our system.
We arrived near Podujevo after taking an easterly and slightly circuitous 20-minute route, about the same time the adrenaline wore off. Podujevo lay in the middle of a long valley that pointed south towards Pristina and terminated in the north at the Serbian border. Like most of Kosovo, this was an agricultural area, and the fields were full of the spring crops.
We didn’t see many farmers operating heavy farm equipment these days. With the oil embargo in full effect, there probably wasn’t any gas to spare, and most of the work was likely being done by hand. We rarely saw any traffic on the roads. The Serbs either had learned their lesson or had figured out our ROEs. They knew that civilian vehicles were safe (at least from A-10s); therefore, civilian vehicles were the only type we would see on the roads.
Today there was little movement on the ground, and the few vehicles I did see on city streets were definitely civilian. I checked along the tree lines and in other areas that our imagery from the past two days had indicated as likely locations for Serb equipment. There was nothing. If the Serb army was in the vicinity of Podujevo, it was well hidden.
In the background, I could overhear the communication between other fighters and AFACs. I called Larry and told him that there wasn’t anything to be found around Podujevo, and asked, “Do you have anything else for us?” “Taco, check with Stew Two-One. He’s working over near G-Town,” Larry said. We sometimes referred to the major cities in Kosovo by their first initial. It kept the chatter down and gave the Serbs who were listening something else to figure out. He quickly passed me coordinates and pushed me to the backup frequency. I sent Rip to the assigned frequency for the eastern half of Kosovo, checked him in, and was almost immediately contacted by Stew 21.
“Taco, Stew Two-One, good voice; say ordnance and playtime.” I recognized the voice of Maj Bumpy Feldhausen, one of the boys from Pope. I replied, “Stew, Taco, One’s got two by CBU-87, Maverick, and the gun. Number Two has four by Mk-82s. We’ve got another 20 minutes of playtime.” “Roger,” Bumpy said, “we’ve got some arty positions in the tree line in our target area. We’re halfway between G-Town and Vranje. Confirm you have the coordinates.”