"Package Q" strike on Iraq just days into Operation Desert Storm
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6HKVIALTmt8xw0tjSPgVsM?si=6TOfCaNkTMiN8IBcww23Ow
Recommend listening to this one (y)
Former U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper pilot Jeff "Tico" Tice was callsign 'Stroke 1,' the flight lead for the ill-fated "Package Q" strike on Iraq just days into Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Stroke 3 miraculously dodged multiple Iraqi SAMs and made it home safely where his HUD footage became a sensation. Tico was not so lucky...
Read about Package Q
here.
Watch the Stroke 3 video
here.
The
Package Q Airstrike was the largest
airstrike of the
Persian Gulf War and the largest strike of
F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter aircraft in military history. Many aircraft including the
F-117 Nighthawk were used to attack targets in
Baghdad, which was the most heavily defended area of
Iraq. The same target was hit several times by F-117s, and the last package consisted of seventeen
F-111F Aardvarks on the 19th day of the war.
The main target of the strike was the
Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center near Baghdad, which was the site of the
Osirak Nuclear Reactor that was
attacked by the Iranian Air Force in 1980 and
again by the Israeli Air Force in 1981, along with many other military sites across the city. Two aircraft were shot down, with two pilots becoming
POWs. The mission goal was not met, with the reactors of the research facility only slightly damaged, although many of the secondary targets were hit. F-117 aircraft re-attacked the facility later causing significant damage.
[4]
The attack was the largest of the war and represented an attempt to strike Iraqi defenses a serious blow. The raid illustrated how a number of small incidents or stresses, none by themselves necessarily serious, could contribute to an unsatisfactory outcome,
[5] which eventually convinced
United States Air Force (USAF) commanders to call off further airstrikes against downtown Baghdad by conventional (non-stealth) aircraft.