A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

It was 9 June 1999, a standard (beautiful) day in Italy and forecasted to be gorgeous in Kosovo. Many of us knew the end was near because we were told Milosevic was going to accept NATO’s demands and today would be the last “offensive” day of the air campaign. I was excited because I was flying with Maj James “Jimbo” MacCauley, one of the two pilots from Moody to join us at Gioia del Colle. It was always interesting to fly with folks from another squadron to see if their tactics, or thoughts on the way things should be done, were any different from those of my own squadron mates. He had also flown during Operation Desert Storm and was one of the more experienced pilots with us.

The day, as usual, started off with signing off numerous battle staff directives (BSD) that most pilots dreaded reading because most did not apply to us. It was just one more thing we had to squish in while we were half-asleep before the flight briefing at “o’ dark 30.” Finally we finished our daily planning routine and started our flight briefing.

Jimbo briefed relatively standard tactics, the same ones we studied and practiced every day; it was good to know that Hog guys from different bases practiced the same stuff our squadron did. I noticed he did do a good job emphasizing the basic communications and lookout duties that he expected of a wingman. Such information sometimes gets left out when flying with many of the same guys, and it is important to have it stressed from time to time. I also thought in the back of my mind, as Jimbo probably did, that this was not the day to become complacent—even with all the talk of things winding down.

We eventually stepped, took off, hit the tanker, and entered the AOR uneventfully. We started looking at the areas of interest that intelligence had briefed us about. There was very little activity, and we found nothing where intel told us to look. Capt Christopher “Junior” Short and Col Al Thompson were the prior AFACs on station, and they were looking at an area in southern Kosovo, 10 miles southwest of Prizren. They thought they had found some APCs or tanks but had to hit the tanker, so they gave us a quick talk-on and left the area.

Jimbo made a couple passes with the binoculars but could not quite make out what was there. He also did a Maverick search but could not tell for sure if the potential targets were live vehicles, decoys, or “tactical bushes.” He saw a horseshoe formation around a dirt berm, so he elected to drop his Mk-82s on them to see if we could get some secondaries or movement from them. He rippled his four Mk-82s on the eastern side of the formation. We did not see any secondaries, but the targets did not seem to be decoys because they stayed relatively intact. After climbing back to altitude and joining the briefed formation, he instructed me to drop my Mk-82s on the western side of the formation.

\Map: Target area southwest of Prizren

As I rolled in to begin my dive delivery, I saw a flash and smoke trailing a missile quickly climbing towards the spot where I had last seen Jimbo. I immediately broke off my delivery, called out the missile launch, and directed him to expend flares. Shortly after I spit out all the required radio calls, the missile passed behind Jimbo along his flight path. I made sure I knew exactly where the launch came from because I was pissed that they had tried to kill us. There was still a significant amount of smoke in the area from where the missile had launched, and a thick smoke trail lingered in the air—we figured it was not just a MANPADS. We departed the launch-site area and broke line of sight. Meanwhile Jimbo briefed me on a suppressor-bomber attack. I was ready to roll right in and made sure Jimbo knew that. I was excited when I executed the attack, and as soon as I rolled out on “final” I realized that I had not considered the winds. “Final” is the airspace flown through during the few seconds after rolling out of the diving turn and just prior to weapons release. It is where pilots would normally refine their dive angle, airspeed, and ground track so that when they depress the pickle button, they will have the correct sight picture, airspeed, altitude, and dive angle so the bomb will hit the target. As I rolled out, I realized I needed to come off dry—without dropping any bombs—because the wind had blown me too far, and I would not be able to attain the necessary delivery parameters to make a good pass and kill the target. Fortunately, I decided to come off early and had enough energy to expedite the next attack.