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ZitatAlles anzeigenThe Night They Saved Vega 31
By Darrel Whitcomb
The rescue of F-117 pilot Dale Zelko was a close-run thing.
On March 27, 1999, the fourth night of Operation Allied Force, USAF Lt. Col. Darrell P. Zelko turned his F-117 to an outbound heading, returning to Aviano Air Base in northern Italy. Zelko had reached his objective, and both of his aircraft’s precision guided bombs appeared to have hit their target near Belgrade.
Zelko was flying with the call sign of Vega 31. It was his third sortie of the air war over Serbia. Deployed from the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., he was engaged in his second combat operation. He was a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War.
However, Zelko was still deep in enemy territory. Vega 31 was west-northwest of the target area when his routine suddenly was shattered by indications that Serbian air defense systems had targeted his aircraft. The F-117 was not as maneuverable as most fighters, and Zelko could only watch and press on as the enemy tried to find him.Seeing the enemy fire as it approached his aircraft, he closed his eyes as the brightness of the explosions temporarily blinded him and threw deadly shards of jagged steel into his airplane. The aircraft began to pitch and roll violently.
There were witnesses. Capt. Mark Baroni was the aircraft commander of Frank 36, a KC-135 that had just refueled several other aircraft. Baroni was looking toward Belgrade when he recalled that “all of a sudden, I saw a series of airborne explosions and then one really big one.”
Zelko’s aircraft, a legendary stealth fighter, was hit. Realizing that his aircraft was dying, he reached down and pulled the ejection handles. The canopy separated from the aircraft and the ejection seat fired, propelling him into the frigid night air.
Moonlight Ride
“My mom is not going to be happy with me,” Zelko thought as he fell through the darkness. His parachute and life support equipment deployed. He quickly checked his chute, noting with some shock that the white and orange panels were clearly visible in the moonlight. Well-lit Belgrade was off to his right, and he sensed that enemy forces below would be alerted to capture him.
The propaganda value of shooting down and capturing an F-117 pilot would be enormous. The stealth fighter had until then seemed invincible. Zelko was determined to deny the enemy the second half of the prize—himself. It was about 8:45 p.m. local time. He was in for a long night.
Zelko took out his survival radio. “Mayday, mayday, mayday, Vega 31,” he broadcast on the emergency “Guard” frequency.
The crew of Frank 36 heard the call, as did a NATO E-3 AWACS aircraft in an orbit not far away. Flight Lt. Frank Graham, a British officer onboard the AWACS, returned the call, “Vega 31, ... Magic 86 on Guard.” Zelko was not at that moment able to respond.
Graham and the other AWACS crew members began frantically to react. Digging through reams of data, they had to quickly determine who Vega 31 was and what he had been tasked to do.
At the same time, they were beginning to get calls from several other agencies as the word of Vega 31’s troubles quickly spread.
Zelko made another radio call. “Roger, roger, out of the aircraft.” He paused and then continued, “Vega 31 is out, beacon on now,” as he switched his radio to transmit the emergency signal.
Knowing that the Serbs were probably monitoring the frequency, he stopped the beeper after three seconds, but it was critical that Zelko get a signal out quickly. Time was of the essence, and he knew that coalition rescue forces would respond.
The crew in Frank 36 acknowledged his call. Zelko put away his radio and oriented on the terrain. Still descending toward the Earth, he was only about 20 miles west of Belgrade.
At about 3,000 feet above ground, he passed through a cloud deck. The wind was from the southwest and he could see that he was drifting down south of the town of Ruma in an area of open farm fields. There were many vehicles on the roads and he was concerned that somebody would spot his parachute.
Zelko picked his landing spot and turned his canopy toward a plowed field about 50 yards west of a north-south rail line and a road with a “T” intersection.In Enemy Territory
Zelko landed, quickly hid his parachute, harness, and life raft, and scanned the road. Seeing no activity, he moved to a hiding site he had noticed just before he landed. It was about 250 yards away.
There, he grabbed some of the rich Serbian dirt and smeared it all over his face, neck, and hands.
Fortunately, Zelko had worn several layers of clothes, and he had some extra insulation. Tucked inside his T-shirt, right over his heart, was a folded American flag. It belonged to the young airman who had prepared his target folder for this mission.
As he settled into his hiding site, Zelko anticipated that rescue forces were marshaling. The United States did not send its warriors into harm’s way without providing the capability to rescue them.
In preparation for combat, Zelko maintained excellent physical condition and had spent long hours reviewing the rescue procedures as directed by the special instructions (SPINs) in the daily tasking orders for the aircrews. He had received combat crew survival and evasion training and worked with specialists in his unit to develop a workable escape plan of action for just such an occurrence.
Zelko assumed that enemy forces knew of his arrival and also were actively organizing a search operation. Instinctively, he knew that his actions would be critical to the success or failure of any rescue attempt.
The downed pilot was equipped with several items to help facilitate his rescue. Besides his radio, he had Global Positioning System location equipment, several signaling devices, and a 9 mm pistol.
Rescue forces were in the region. Before the start of the conflict, three special operations squadrons deployed to an airfield near Brindisi, Italy. They were joined there by pararescue jumpers (PJs) from the 720th Special Tactics Group.
All were attached to Joint Special Operations Task Force 2. Their helicopters could be called on to perform combat recoveries under the tactical control of the Combined Air Operations Center at Vicenza, in northern Italy.
The CAOC worked for Lt. Gen. Michael C. Short, the 16th Air Force commander and combined force air commander for this operation. Short had made combat search and rescue a high priority.
Brindisi was almost 250 miles from Belgrade. To reduce reaction time, several of the helicopters had been ordered to Tuzla, Croatia, and were on alert there.
The task force launched just before Zelko took off. It consisted of a lead MH-53M piloted by Capt. James L. Cardoso and Capt. John C. Glass, an MH-53J flown by Capt. Shawn Cameron and Capt. Mark Daley, and the MH-60G of Capt. Chad P. Franks and Capt. Matt Glover. (See “Silver Stars,” June 2000, p. 80.)
Lt. Col. Stephan J. Laushine, commander of the 55th SOS, flew in the lead aircraft as rescue mission commander.Arriving at Tuzla, the alert aircraft proceeded to the hot refueling area while Laushine went into operations for an initial orientation. The operations center was soon notified that the F-117 was down.
Their immediate concern was Zelko’s location. Information coming in from several sources initially indicated that Vega 31 was down northwest of Novi Sad, along the aircraft’s planned egress route. Based on that analysis, Laushine built a plan. The three helicopters would take off as a flight. Each would have a full complement of Air Force PJs and would be augmented with Army Special Forces.
As the rescue teams were getting ready to go, CNN showed scenes of the still-burning F-117 wreckage, footage being supplied by Serbian news services. The imagery sent a chill through the operations center at Tuzla.
Hunkered down in his hiding site near Ruma, Lt. Col. Dale Zelko waited.
The Search and Rescue
CSAR doctrine calls for the formation of a task force composed of helicopters and A-10 attack aircraft. The escort aircraft would provide command and control and close-in air support for the helicopters.
For this operation, the A-10s from the 81st Fighter Squadron, Spangdahlem AB, Germany, had been deployed to Aviano. That evening, two A-10s were on rescue alert: Sandy 30, piloted by Capt. John A. Cherrey, and Sandy 31, piloted by Capt. John O’Brien.
Also orbiting—well to the south and at a safe altitude—was an EC-130E Commando Solo command and control aircraft. It had also monitored Vega 31’s radio calls.
One of the team members, Capt. Ripley Woodard, an A-10 pilot from Spangdahlem, was monitoring intelligence reports. Strong enemy forces were in Zelko’s area, and they were beginning to actively search for the F-117 pilot. Woodard knew that rescue forces had to move quickly.
Maj. Phil Haun, the A-10 weapons and tactics officer at Aviano, was in the operations center when it received the report that Zelko was down.
Another pilot delivered Zelko’s vital isolated personnel report (ISOPREP) information. This data, known only by the downed pilot, would give the Sandys the ability to authenticate the survivor and avoid being drawn into a trap.The A-10s then took off. Arriving over the survivor, Cherrey would become the critical on-scene commander.
Using the same coordinates given to Laushine, Haun also began working with the intelligence section at Aviano to develop a battle plan. He met with representatives from the F-16 squadrons also at Aviano and suggested targets for them to bomb.
Haun intended to launch two more A-10s half an hour after Cherrey departed. These would be Sandy 41 and Sandy 42 and would be available to escort the helicopters for the run in and egress.
Then, 30 minutes after them, he would take off with another A-10, to be Sandy 51, and Sandy 52, able to swap out with Sandy 30 and 31. This should allow for continuous contact with Zelko.
Haun also calculated a rendezvous place and time for the helicopters to join up with the A-10s and had that location passed to the command center at Tuzla.
Unfortunately, the rendezvous time passed to Laushine was indicated in local time. Haun was doing all of his planning in Zulu time. In this theater of operations, local time was one hour ahead.
When Laushine got the message, he realized that his force would be late for the rendezvous and he scrambled his crews to proceed to the meeting point, which was near the Serbian border west of Novi Sad.