"Package Q" strike on Iraq just days into Operation Desert Storm

1686165072457.png



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.

1686165121987.png


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.
 
Top