Remembering Eagle Flight Eleven Years Later

Posted By Blackfive

"They came to save us, and to give us dignity. Their sacrifice will remain in the minds of our children for the rest of their lives. We will teach their names to our children, and keep their names in our books of history as heroes who gave their lives for freedom." - Kurd Sheik Ahmet, April 17th, 1994 memorial service in Zakhu, Iraq

In April, 1991, as part of U.N. Resolution 688, the National Command Authority commanded the US Armed Forces to conduct Operation Provide Comfort. The mission was a tough one - to provide humanitarian aid to over one million Kurdish Refugees in northern Iraq. We began with airdrops (food, clothing, tents, blankets, medicine) a few days later.

General John Shalikashvili, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had this to say about the hard work of the Provide Comfort Soldiers and Airmen:

For over 1,000 days, the pilots and crews assigned to Operation Provide Comfort flew mission after mission, totalling over 50,000 hours...

To further stop Saddam from killing the Kurds, a northern No-Fly Zone was placed north of the 36th parallel. Any Iraqi aircraft would be shot down in the No-Fly Zone.

The No-Fly Zone was patrolled and kept "clean" by the USAF with fighters (F-15s) being supported by command and control aircraft (AWACS).

On April 14th, 1994, two Blackhawk helicopters were ready for take-off from Diyarbakir, Turkey. COL Jerry Thompson - one of the best soldiers I had evet met - was changing command (or co-command as "command" of Provide Comfort was shared with Turkey). He decided to show his replacement, COL Mulhern, the lay of the land. At 0730, COL Thompson assembled 26 people that comprised important (command group) roles for the mission. He included French, British, and Turkish commanders and laisons, and also brought along Kurdish para-military personnel and linguists.

The two Blackhawks were designated Eagle-1 and Eagle-2. Their first destination was Irbil, Iraq, but they would have to make a stop in Zakhu, Iraq (where the military part of Provide Comfort operated). There were plans to visit several other areas as well.

At 8:22AM, Eagle Flight departed Diyarbakir. They were headed East-Southeast for a "gate" into the No-Fly Zone. Per Standard Operating Procedure, the command group was split between Eagle-1 and Eagle-2 to ensure continuity of command if one helicopter went down.

At 9:21AM, Eagle Flight called the AWACS (callsign "Cougar"). They requested and were granted permission to enter the "gate" into the the No-Fly Zone.

At 9:24AM, Eagle Flight lands at Zakhu, Iraq.

At 9:35AM, two USAF F-15 fighters launched from Incirlik, Turkey. They were designated Tiger-1 and Tiger-2. Tiger-1 was the lead fighter with Tiger-2 as the wingman. Tiger Flight was headed to patrol the No-Fly Zone.

At 9:54AM, Eagle Flight calls the AWACS to report departure from Zakhu, Iraq, with a destination of Irbil, Iraq.

At 10:12AM, Eagle Flight enters mountainous terrain. It's Identification Friend or Foe system (IFF) failed.

At 10:20AM Tiger Flight passes through "gate" into No-Fly Zone.

At 10:22AM Tiger Flight picks up radar contact at forty nautical miles. No IFF reading occurs. Tiger-1 reports, "Cougar, picked up helicopter tracking northwest bound." AWACS says the area should be "clean".

At 10:25 AWACS responds that there are "hits there" in the No-Fly Zone - confirming Tiger Flight's radar contact.

Tiger Flight makes visual contact with Eagle Flight at five nautical miles.

At 10:28 Tiger-1 conducts a visual identification (VID) pass of the helicopters. "Cougar, tally 2 HINDS."

HINDS are Soviet Helicopters used by the Iraqi Armed Forces.

AWACS replied, "Copy two HINDS".

Tiger-1 then instructed Tiger-2 to make a VID pass.

Thirty seconds later Tiger-2 confirms, "Tally 2."

Tiger-1 to Tiger-2, "Arm hot."

At 10:30AM on April 14, 1994, Tiger-1 fired an AIM 120 (medium range air-to-air missle) at Eagle-2. Tiger-2 fired an AIM 9 (Sidewinder air-to-air missle) at Eagle-1.

The missles hit Eagle Flight with deadly accuracy. Tiger-1 confirmed the hits to AWACS, "Splash two HINDS."

There were no survivors.

....

Today is the eleventh anniversary of this horrible accident.  Their names are:

US Military:
SSG Paul Barclay (SF Commo NCO)
SPC Cornelius A. Bass (Eagle-1 Door Gunner)
SPC Jeffrey C. Colbert (Eagle-1 Crew Chief)
SPC Mark A. Ellner (Eagle-2 Door Gunner)
CW2 John W. Garrett, Jr. (Eagle-1 Pilot)
CW2 Michael A. Hall (Eagle-2 Pilot Command)
SFC Benjamin T. Hodge (Linguist)
CPT Patrick M. McKenna (Eagle-1 Pilot Command)
WO1 Erik S. Mounsey (Eagle-2 Pilot)
COL Richard A. Mulhern (Incoming Co-Commander)
1LT Laurie A. Piper (USAF, Intel Officer)
SGT Michael S. Robinson (Eagle-2 Crew Chief)
SSG Ricky L. Robinson (SF Medic)
Ms. Barbara L. Schell (State Dept. Political Advisor)
COL Jerald L. Thompson (Outgoing Co-Commander)

British Military:
MAJ Harry Shapland (Security/Intel Duty Officer)
LTC Jonathan C. Swann (Senior UK Officer)

French Military:
LTC Guy Demetz (Senior French Officer)

Turkish Army:
COL Hikmet Alp (Co-Commander)
LT Ceyhun Civas (Laison Officer)
LT Barlas Gultepe (Liason Officer)

Kurdish Partisans:
Abdulsatur Arab
Ghandi Hussein
Bader Mikho
Ahmad Mohammed
Salid Said (Linguist)

Please take a minute to pray for their families today and remember that their sacrifices led to a flourishing Kurdish enclave - a place they would be very, very proud of today.  I don't think in our wildest dreams would we ever have thought we would have a Kurd as President of a free Iraq.

[edit note:  this post is an re-edit of a post from last year]

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Comments

[huck]

Didn't know you took part in those Ops, BF.

It genuinely sucked up there. I was Marine ANGLICO, leading a team attached to 3/325 out of Vicenza, IT (They're 173rd ABCT now, right?) near Dohuk.

I got hit on May 24 when a soldier I was moving with tripped a mine - PFC Lars Chew. He didn't make it out of Iraq, perishing at the Brit field hospital at Sirsenk Airfield. Actually had the fortunate chance to meet his brother (former 82nd) and family years later - great folks from Colorado, and we're still loosely in touch today.

Rest in peace, PFC Chew... Even after suffering tremendous wounds, you were one helluva brave man up on that mountain ridge.

[Blackfive]

ANGLICOs Rock! If I was a Marine, I would have wanted to have that mission (and if AF, I would have been a Combat Controller). Blowing @#$% up is fun!

For those who don't know the ANGLICANS

http://www.anglico.org/Main%20Page.htm

[Sgt. B.]

Amen, Blackfive, amen...

Prayers also for Tiger-One and Tiger-Two, who must have gone through some pretty rough times when they realized what had happened...

[Blackfive]

Yeah, there's a whole other thread that could be started about the incident. I just wanted to remember these guys.

[Maggie]

Prayers coming from here. Thank you for your service, Matt.

[Harvey]

*raises glass*

To all of them. Bless them. We won't forget.

[scooterkool]

I must echo all the previous posters and say that we must never forget the 26 innocent lives lost 11 years ago.
Both last year & this year I find myself searching for answers as to how this could happen.
I did find a 50 page transcript of a seminar by West Point professor LTC Scott Snook at http://www.pirp.harvard.edu/pubs_pdf/snook%5Csnook-i01-1.pdf
Thanks Blackfive for reminding us of the loss of your friends and countrymen!

[Teresa]

As soon as I started reading, I remembered the post from last year. Took me all day to get back here... every time I thought I'd come post a comment, I'd start crying. It's a terrible terrible thing - and I hope that something was learned from it, so this never happens again. My prayers go out to the families and friends who remember and wonder why...

[NOTR]

I can still touch the rage of the coverup that followed this shootdown. Army pilots took the fall, and they followed every rule by the book. It was one of the most shameful episodes of the time.

[SFC Ski]

I was in the same Battalion with SFC Ben Hodge, he set an example as an NCO and as a linguist, that a lot of us tried to live up to. His death left a big hole in the military linuguist community, and in his unit's and his family's lives.

I have privates in my platton who know the differences between a Blackhawk and a Hind, I will never understand how those pilots ccould have been so wrong

[Jem]

Another consequence of the accident was the revival of production of aircraft recognition materials for Air Force continuibg training...

The old style of materials was a photographic slide kit (thus requiring a slide projector). Producing (and reproducing) these slides is time-consuming and expensive, resulting in everyone one using the same couple of images for training. Further, because recognition training wasn't "sexy", it tended to be lightly regarded by both trainers and pilots/trainees.

Using newer technology, recognition materials moved more into video/computer-based media--much cheaper and thus incorporating more images, realistic movement, and even activity simulations. Plus, you could now run the recognition training on a laptop (or a computer network). This took money, which would never have been allocated without the tragic results discussed in this post.

[Larry J]

I worked on one of those aircraft recognition training software programs. It was called Joint Visual Identification (JVID). As a vet and an airplane nut, it was one of the most fun jobs I ever had, but it was also one of the most important. We never forgot the reason why we were developing the software.

[greg C]

I used to work that mission as a platoon leader in C 6-159 AVN. I knew all those guys on the flight crews. I owed CPT McKenna $20 which I never got to repay. I had been on the previous rotation, in Dec-Feb , and I remember attending an Operation Provide Comfort briefing at Incerlik AFB. One of our constant gripes with the AF was that the fighter jocks were constantly flying below their minimum altitude so that they could have fun in the mountain valleys of N Iraq. There were several instances where they would underfly our Blackhawks. The reaction from the AF General was something akin to "well, you know, they're fighter jocks, so if I tell 'em to stay above 8,000 ft and they're coming down to 7,000, they're still doing pretty good." Reprehensible, but it pretty much summed up the AF mindset at that place and time. He, and the officers directly involved, paid for that attitude, although not dearly enough if you ask me. I haven't had a nice thing to say about the Air Force since that time.

[Mounsey]

The regurgitation of the Black Hawk shoot down as addressed by the military and DOD is both tiring and inaccurate. The facts to this incident is hidden within the 23 volumes of disconnected data of public but very sensitive testimonies of those directly involved in this alleged Friendly Fire. This was a politically prosecution driven by senior Department of Defense leadership with a perceived need to hold no one accountable, a conviction would mean an appeal, an appeal would require the Article 32 be challenged for truth through fact finding, something the DOD found to horrible to contemplate since it would involve the rule of law as prescribed under the UN and NATO. The UCMJ was only technically complied with, unheard of in a case of this magnitude. It was manipulated by lawyers, judge advocates, and commanders to achieve a predetermined outcome
by guarding and surrounding it with a wall that was less than truthful to protect the truth of their blow-back.

[Armyshortee83]

SGT Michael S. Robinson was my sisters husbands brother. He was a wonderful person that left behind a son and a very caring family. He is missed still today and will always be missed. His death tore through his family like a knife. The government tried to conceal what really happened and in the end sent his mother photos in the mail of his burnt corpse to verify that it was him. The death was a tragedy, but the way the government dealt with it was the real tradegy! His flag and his picture sit on my sisters dresser still today. As a soldier myself I look at that flag with great pride and my heart still hurts for him and his family.

[CPL. RICHARD L BACCARIE]

GYSGT BRAD O'NEAL, LCPL WATTS AND MYSELF THEN PFC. BACCARIE WERE PART OF PROVIDE COMFORT. MY HEART AND PRAYERS AND ALSO SORROW GOES OUT TO ALL U.S. FORCES INJURED OR KILLED. YOU WILL ALL BE MISSED. CALL SIGN PACKERS FCT. WITH SECOND AIR NAVAL GUNFIRE LIAISON COMPANY. ATTACHED TO THE SPANISH.
SEMPER FIDELIS

ALWAYS FAITHFUL GOD, COUNTRY AND CORPS

[god damnit Baham]

"Comment below written by: huck

Didn't know you took part in those Ops, BF.

It genuinely sucked up there. I was Marine ANGLICO, leading a team attached to 3/325 out of Vicenza, IT (They're 173rd ABCT now, right?) near Dohuk.

I got hit on May 24 when a soldier I was moving with tripped a mine - PFC Lars Chew. He didn't make it out of Iraq, perishing at the Brit field hospital at Sirsenk Airfield. Actually had the fortunate chance to meet his brother (former 82nd) and family years later - great folks from Colorado, and we're still loosely in touch today.

Rest in peace, PFC Chew... Even after suffering tremendous wounds, you were one helluva brave man up on that mountain ridge."

I was in that unit at the time. I would like very much to get in touch with you Huck.

[Ben's Best Friend]

SFC Benjamin T. Hodge was my best friend. He lived around the corner from me in Weiterstadt, Germany, and rode with me to work almost everyday. He was the PSG of the "Arabic" platoon of A Co., 165th MI Bn, based in Darmstadt, Germany. I was PSG of the "German/Slavic" platoon. Ben and I went to the field together, played raquetball together, ate together, smoked together, drank together, cried together, and took ass-chewings together. Ben volunteered for the OPC mission, only after consulting with his wife, Brenda, who had a medical condition that required Ben to be stationed within 50 miles of a military hospital. The last time I saw Ben, he was filling out some legal paperwork in the hallway of our orderly room. He said, "Hey, wanna play some raquetball later?" I replied, "Affirmative." He said, "Well, you'll have to pack your dufflebag, and come with me to the Big Sandy!" It was only then that I realized his volunteering had earned him the privilege of serving his country and the Iraqi Kurds yet again. He was so unselfish in that way. Ben had previously served in (if I remember correctly) Grenada, Panama, and Desert Storm.
On the morning of April 14th, 1994, I was just a few weeks away from rotating back Stateside. I was the ASGM while the rest of the battalion was out for range density. I went to inspect the dining facility, and while standing at the door of the facility, my orderly ran up to me and said, "SFC Hodge was on the manifest!" I was shocked, stunned, and in total disbelief....we had all heard via AFN and AFRTS of the shootdown. The orderly had a transcript from somewhere in his hand, and there, in black and white, was Ben's name. I made commo with the battalion in the field, and all was confirmed. The unit returned to Darmstadt, as we awaited the return of Ben's (and the others') remains to Wiesbaden for graves registration personnel to ID. It took forever! In the meantime, everyone and their brothers decided to show up in Darmstadt - brass hats from everywhere - Deputy Chief of Staff for this and that, Undersecretary of this or that, press reporter this, photographer that - they didn't even know Ben or Brenda, or their 11-year old daughter. It was all about showing that the Army "cared" or something....at the same time, the Army was insisting that Brenda pay back the TDY advance that Ben had collected prior to his departure! (His wallet was later returned with his remains, and all of the money was still in it) The Army wouldn't even pay Brenda's way back to Arlington for the internment - the unit took up a collection to help her get there and back, since she still had to outprocess from Darmstadt. Good Casualty Assistance Personnel helped her with that, thank God.
I took a photo of Ben to a German photo studio in Darmstadt to have it enlarged for the memorial ceremony. The owner wouldn't allow me to pay for the work. He said, "This brave soldier gave his life for us all..."
Some of the bigwigs that showed up insisted on sitting next to and "comforting" Brenda during the memorial ceremony....what a sham!
Members of Ben's unit offered the sincerest of eulogies, poems, songs, and memories in front of that memorial of spit-polished jump boots, helmet, and M16 that day. 1SG Moore's roll call at the end of the ceremony was a BEE-ATCH....3 volleys of 7 x M16s later, and it was all over.
Those of us who really knew Ben remember him as being a simple, honest, loyal, and generous soldier, who genuinely cared about those troops in his charge. He loved his family - spoke of them always - and he loved his country! Truly a soldier for others to emulate.
In the aftermath, I followed the investigation and subsequent courts-martial of the fighter pilots and the AWACS crew members, in particular USAF Cpt Wang, and I was stunned by the outcome. Accidents don't happen, they are caused. SOMEONE was responsible, but only those 26 innocent victims paid for the awful chain of events that occured that day!
Ben - keep the courts waxed and warm. When the Big CO decides it's my time, I owe you a game of raquetball....and this time, I'll woop your ass!
Rick