A challenge to Gaddafi draws fire—and swift U.S. retaliation
The scene was the south central Mediterranean Sea, where naval maneuvers by elements of the U.S. Sixth Fleet were under way. The participants were the men and warships of Task Force 60, an armada comprising two aircraft carriers, the U.S.S. Nimitz and U.S.S. Forrestal, and 14 support ships. The purpose of the operation: a two-day "open-ocean missile exercise" in one of the less crowded regions of the Mediterranean. At dawn Tuesday, while the bulk of the task force stood at least 100 miles off the African coastline, two destroyers slipped into the northern reaches of the Gulf of Sidra, with the mission of patrolling the southern perimeter of the exercise and watching for stray missiles. As Washington was purposefully aware, the dispatch of the two ships was a sensitive move: the Gulf of Sidra, albeit in contravention of prevailing international agreements, is claimed by Libya, a country the U.S. considers an outlaw nation.
As the exercise began, ships and planes fired surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles at target drones overhead. F-14 Tomcats, the U.S. Navy's hottest and most versatile fighter planes, flew combat air patrol, or CAP in military parlance, watching for intruding aircraft and warning off the unwary. Since the landfall to the south was Libya, led by the unpredictable and often hostile Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and since U.S. and French aircraft had been harassed over the Mediterranean by Libyan planes, the U.S. pilots were ready for trouble. To the north of the F-14s flew two carrier-based E-2C Hawkeye radar planes, smaller counterparts of the Air Force AWACS, spotting approaching aircraft and ships.
By Wednesday morning, the CAP had intercepted and waved off about 40 sorties by Libyan air force planes. Each time, U.S. F-14s rolled in beside the interlopers, and the Libyan planes turned and headed for home. Had the Libyans not done so, the American pilots would have had no choice but to escort them through the exercise area, however dangerous it might be, since the craft of both nations were over international waters.
Thus there was nothing surprising or particularly ominous about the approach, at 7 o'clock Wednesday morning, of another pair of Libyan aircraft from the south. The Hawkeyes detected them and radioed the CAP. Two silvery F-14s from the Nimitz swung south, spotted the Libyans on their radar, and moved in to identify them. As the two flights approached almost head on, one of the Soviet-built Su-22 planes fired an air-to-air Atoll missile at the F-14s. U.S. forces heard the pilot say in Arabic, "I have fired." He missed. The F-14s had seen the Atoll's smoke immediately and had violently broken away, evading the missile and wheeling sharply around to come in behind the Libyans. U.S. rules of engagement permit pilots to shoot back if fired upon, and each of the F-14s triggered a single heat-seeking Sidewinder missile, each scoring a hit on a Libyan plane. One of the Libyan pilots parachuted from his stricken aircraft, and was promptly rescued by a Libyan patrol boat. The engagement, 60 miles off the coast, lasted no more than one minute. It was the first U.S. military action since the ill-fated attempt of April 1980 to rescue the hostages in Iran.