"Dog Two — copy?"
Nothing.
Filled with anguish and guilt, Gaines banked into a steep right turn and orbited the crash site. He was praying for a miracle, hoping Smith had ejected in the last split second. It was too dark to see a parachute. At their low altitude, if his friend had ejected, he would already be on the ground. The residual fire was spread over 200 yards along the rising slope.
Continuing to circle the crash, Gaines waited for Smith to use his handheld emergency radio. The veteran aviator knew in his heart that Smith was not going to come up on guard frequency. Emotionally exhausted, Gaines finally radioed the air force AWACS to report his wingman down. He gave the mission specialist the coordinates and requested a search-and-rescue helicopter be sent to the site.
Gaines rolled out on course to the carrier and radioed the AWACS when he was "feet wet." Unable to make it to the ship without tanking, Gaines was given a vector to a nearby KC-135. After taking on 5,000 pounds of fuel, Gaines turned toward Mom. His mind was not on flying. He wasn t ready to tell anyone that he had killed his trusting wingman. That confession would have to be made in private to his commanding officer.
Climbing in minimum afterburner to 23,000 feet, he reduced the power to military and replayed the accident over and over. After a few minutes, he noticed the rapidly dwindling fuel supply. That liquid streaming off the fuselage has to he fuel.
Gaines checked in with the carrier and told them about the battle damage and the low fuel state. He was given priority to land. He jettisoned all of his external stores and both drop tanks. In order to conserve fuel, he waited as long as he could and then began an idle descent to 1,500 feet.
Nearing the carrier, he lowered the tailhook, dropped the landing gear, and set the flaps to one half for the single-engine approach. In order to maintain his altitude and airspeed, Gaines had to use minimum burner. He waited until he was abeam the landing signal officer (LSO) platform.
"Four Oh Twos abeam, gear."
Click-click.
"Four Oh Twos single engine."
Click-click.
Afraid of flaming out, Gaines flew a tight approach. Rolling out on final, he had the meatball centered and an amber donut on the angle-of-attack (AOA). Good start — keep it going.
"Four Oh Two, Hornet ball, single engine, one-point-oh." Approximately seven, maybe eight minutes of fuel — don't blow the landing.
The LSO was shocked. "Say fuel again."
"One-point-zero."
"Roger ball." This could be interesting.
Gaines was drifting below the optimum glide slope, and he could see it on the ball. Come on… ease some power on — save it. He inched the left throttle forward to mid-range burner, but the heat-induced loss of thrust was too much for the damaged aircraft. Slow and dirty with the landing gear hanging in the breeze made it even more difficult.
Glancing at the flames from the afterburner, the LSO was becoming more concerned. "Power, a little more power."
Gaines was still settling as he approached the carrier s round-down. I can't take it around — have to make a play for the deck!
"Power-power-p ower!"
Gaines tapped the blower and shoved in a bootful of left rudder. The application of full afterburner was too late to salvage the approach. It also ignited the streaming jet fuel, leaving a sixty-foot trail of jagged orange-white flames. The onlookers standing on Vultures Row were about to view a spectacular sight.
The LSO pickled the bright red wave-off lights. "Wave off, wave off! Power; power, power!"
With full left rudder, the jet was yawing to the right and still settling with maximum afterburner. Panicked, Gaines pulled the nose up and ejected. The blazing Hornet staggered across the flight deck while dancing on its tail and then plowed into a parked F/A-18 on the aft starboard elevator. Both aircraft exploded and went over the side of the flight deck.
Gaines landed safely in the water and was picked up by the plane-guard helicopter. After a trip to sick bay to have a thorough medical checkup, Lieutenant Commander Gaines took a quick shower and donned a fresh khaki uniform.
He waited until the other strike aircraft landed safely and then met in private with his squadron CO. With the entire story on the line, Gaines calmly removed his coveted wings of gold and placed them on the COs desk. His promising career as a TopGun-trained navy fighter pilot was over. Gaines spent the rest of the night writing a letter to the family of Lieutenant Warren Smith.
U. S. Army and U. S. Marine Corps units had been deploying along the southwestern border for a number of hours. Other army forces— from Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Benning, Georgia; and Fort Stewart, Georgia — were deploying along the southeastern border. National Guard units were also patrolling the border at selected sites.
While the arriving military units spread out to their assigned grid coordinates, more cargo and troop transports were landing at airports along the border. The military personnel were to stop the illegal immigrants at the border and detain any who managed to cross over.
Marine corps helicopters and Harriers patrolled the western end of the dividing line at El Paso, Texas, while mostly army helicopter gunships and air force close-air-support (CAS) A-10 Warthogs patrolled the eastern section of the border. Working with forward air controllers (FACS) on the ground and in the air, the CAS assets could be over any hot spot in a matter of minutes.
Orbiting thirty-five miles south of Alpine, Texas, an AWACS E-3C Sentry watched as four Mexican F-5E Tiger II fighter aircraft lifted off from the Santa Lucia air base and headed northwest in sections flying a mile apart. Located in the southern central state of Mexico, Santa Lucia is the Mexican Air Forces principal base.
Other Mexican aircraft had been taking off, including armed Pilatus PC-7 turboprop counterinsurgency planes from Zapopan air base, La Paz air base, and the Santa Gertrudis air base. Bell 205, 206, and 212 armed counterinsurgency helicopters had been repositioned to Santa Gertrudis air base to patrol the border.
At the urgent request of the Mexican Army, three of the Mexican Navys armed MD Combat Explorer helicopters were approaching the U. S. border near Sasabe in the late afternoon. Equipped with 70mm rocket pods and GAU .50-caliber Gatling guns, six of the helicopters had been purchased ostensibly to halt the flow of illegal drugs being smuggled on the high seas. The twin-engine gunships were able to outrun the drug traffickers and had the firepower to disable speeding drug boats.
The pilots of a marine corps UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter operating as a FAC spotted the three combat-capable helicopters. They confirmed the MD Combat Explorers had Mexican markings and radioed the fast movers orbiting high above.
The two Harriers from the famous Black Sheep of VMA-214 were six minutes away from the Mexican helicopters. The MD Combat Explorers turned eastbound to parallel the border on the Mexican side. Unable to keep pace with the much faster MDs, the Twin Huey was falling farther behind.
Inexplicably, one of the three MDs sharply banked to the left and flew north into the United States. The marine pilots were surprised and radioed the Harrier flight leader.
"Smoke Zero Two, Festus Ten."
"Smoke."
"You arent going to believe this. One of our pigeons just turned north, headed for Tucson at about two hundred feet."
"Duffy," the Harrier flight leader radioed to his wingman, "I'll take the intruder. Stick with the others."
"Copy"
"Smoke — Festus. Another one turned north at two hundred feet."
"Okay, Duffy, you take the second idiot."
"Roger that."
"Festus, can you keep the other one in sight?"
"Maybe for a couple of minutes; they have at least thirty-five to forty knots on us."