(6 of 10)
Then came a critical accident. After landing, one of the helicopters had its entire hydraulic system knocked out; the aircraft could not fly. The commanders debated whether the mission could fulfill its task with just five choppers. The plan had called for a minimum of six. Two extra had seemed a sufficient backup. Now three were out of action.
As the C-130s proceeded to refuel the remaining helicopters, the rescue team leaders debated whether the mission should be scrubbed. The on-site commander, an Army paratroop colonel, concluded that the diminished passenger capacity of the fleet would mean that if the later stages of the raid were not entirely successful, some of the hostages or commandos might have to be left behind in Tehran. He radioed his recommendation that the odyssey be ended to his superiors at an undisclosed—probably airborne—command post in the Middle East. The Army major general who was mission commander relayed the message to the Pentagon's National Military Command Center. The final decision was bucked to Carter at the White House. Seated in his small study off the Oval Office, the President heard Secretary Brown describe the desperate situation. At 4:50 p.m. in Washington, after the would-be rescuers had been on the ground in the Iranian desert for nearly four hours without being discovered, the very disappointed President agreed that the team should be recalled. He gave the order to Brown to abort. Carter found one consolation in the succession of misfortunes. "At least there were no casualties," he said. "And there was no detection. It could have been worse."
But matters were about to get much worse. Around midnight (local time) a bus carrying some 40 Iranians had rolled along a dirt road that ran right through the landing area. Both the travelers and the Americans were startled to see each other. "We first thought they were bandits," one of the Iranians later recalled. "A couple of them spoke Persian. They told us to get off the bus and raise our hands. They said no one would be hurt unless we tried something funny." But the bus driver screamed in fright. Said the villager: "They hit him on the head with the butt of a rifle. They tied his hands behind his back. They told us all to lie down on the ground."
The passengers reported that two American officers on motorcycles rushed around the airstrip, consulting other military leaders. Finally more radio messages were flashed across the 8,000 miles from the desert to the Pentagon. What should be done with the unexpected visitors? The decision: put them all on a C-130 and fly them temporarily out of Iran. Recalled the Iranian: "They told us to get on the bus again. An American drove us to one of the aircraft. He told us to get off and board the aircraft." Explained an American official in Washington later: "They were going to have a nice long trip."
The mission's most tragic moment intervened. "We were about to board the airplane when one of the other planes caught fire," said the Iranian passenger. "I don't know how. It just caught fire."