Re: I met US Navy aircraft during Iran-Iraq war
- From: Amir <ataghavi2002@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:56:16 -0700
On Jul 29, 11:40 pm, Gordon <Gor...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A lot of people will give you crap, Amir - don't take it seriously,
please. It's good to have the view of the "other team" and most
people here will appreciate your views.
During 1980, we had an incident that you may recall - our ship, USS
Eisenhower, was patrolling "Gonzo Station" in the North Arabian Sea.
We were there for the Hostage Crisis, but never got called into
action. After several months on station, we were released for a port
call in Australia - it never happened because the day we were to pull
in, the Iran/Iraq War began. Immediately, we returned to the NAS to
see if the war expanded.
Some time between August and November (sorry, can't nail it down
closer - I just don't remember), we went to high alert due to
extensive air activity in the Gulf. We were told there was a large
air battle going on and to stay alert. Our CAP was held "close" to
protect the ship, in case the air battle expanded out into the North
Arabian Sea. The E-2 called a slow, low flying contact heading out of
the battle zone and indirectly coming toward our battle group.
Everyone turned toward deeper water and prepared for a hostile
aircraft. At the time, I was working in the Signal Bridge of the
carrier to earn a job as a Signalman, so I was as high up on the ship
as you could get, with an excellent view. We were all looking
northwest, wondering what was coming at us. After the contact cleared
the Straits of Hormuz, our F-14s went to intercept it and at that
point, the info that was spreading among our crew abruptly stopped -
no one seemed to know what was precisely going on. We waited at
Battle Stations.
From the bridge, we took turns scanning the air just above the waves,
looking for the approaching intruder. Later, we found out that our
Tomcats had intercepted the unknown aircraft, but at the time, we
could just see a rather bright light, very far away and just above the
sea. As the "Big Eyes" (ship's large recognition binoculars) focused
on the intense light, it slowly closed and passed from West to East
just at the visible horizon. We took turns looking at the 'mystery
aircraft' and from our vantage point, it appeared to be an F-4 on
fire, with its canopies already jettisoned.
We heard several different stories about what happened next - either
the fire in the F-4 hit something vital or our Tomcats "helped it"
into the water, but either way, it happened outside of our view. The
guys in combat only said it was unmanned, and then the different
stories started, so I have no real idea what happened. Have you ever
heard of this event?
v/r
Gordon
yes, I heard it,
I think it was our F-4E which was shut down by Saudi F-15s fire, they
downed it by US AWACS help,
there is no Arabian sea, we have just one sea nad we call it persian
gulf, please don't make a big mistake
.
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