Thursday, June 19, 2014

Apache Air-to-Air Kill, 1991 Iraq

It is a little known fact that an AH-64 Apache got an air-to-air kill in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, and I've only seen it listed on 1 or two kill lists. Here is the story from Thomas Taylor's awesome book:

Lightning In the Storm
Thomas Taylor
pp. 363

Turbo is eager to take out more armored vehicles but Gabram is preoccupied with controlling his flight and listening to other action on the causeway. East of the Bearcats, 2-229 reports an enviable kill- an Iraqi helicopter in flight.

Some small chopper like a Kiowa darted up hell's highway, skimming over destroyed and derelict vehicles, apparently in search of a particular one. The Apache initially mistook it for an allied chopper, maybe Saudi, because Iraq had not put a plane over the front since the ground war began. Searching the radio frequencies for friendly aircraft, the Apache determined there was none in the vicinity matching his description. He also deduced the shopper's mission: some general was stuck in the deadly traffic jam and had ordered his own extraction.

Wisely the Apache trailed the chopper from afar, waiting till it set down in the teeming road. A figure sprinted from a BMP to the chopper. He jumped in quick as a pathfinder; the door was still open and the chopper beginning to climb when a Hellfire joined him. Still spinning, the tail rotor flew another half mile, returning like a boomerang in search for the vanished chopper of which it was once part.

"Four more and you're an ace!" someone kids the victor.

No comments:

Post a Comment