1 - The Black Vault

THE IRANIAN RESCUE MISSION
Fleming had slowly climbed to 10,000 feet as
he led his formation across the gulf. At 100 miles
south of the Ira nian coastline, Fleming began his
descent to 1,000 feet above the water. Novy,
Fleming’s EWO, called an “all clear” from his EW
indicators. Because the coastal-penetration point
had been planned into a gap between radars, no
early warning signals were received. After 40
minutes and a further descent to 250 feet, the
coastline appeared on Townsend’s radarscope.
As Townsend updated his position with the radar
cursor, he determined that the INS had drifted
only about a half mile since takeoff. With everything
considered, the system was performing well
within tolerances. The navigation system corrected
to the preplanned route, and Fleming corrected
his formation back to course. 121
As Fleming’s formation penetrated the Iranian
coastline, Brenci was already 210 miles ahead,
and the eight-ship helicopter formation was 90
miles inland. Once over land Fleming flew between
500- and 1,000-feet altitude until reaching
the 4,000-foot plateau. From that point he flew
roughly the same altitudes and headings as Brenci
in Dragon 1. 122 Brenci had run into a problem
ahead of Fleming’s formation. Guidry was standing
on the flight deck of the Talon and was scanning
outside with his NVGs when the aircraft entered
a thin haze layer that blocked out most of
the moon’s illumination. After conferring with
Kyle, the crew determined that the condition was
not severe enough to break radio silence and pass
back to Fleming’s formation or to the helicopters.
In a few minutes Brenci popped out of the haze
into clear air again and continued on course. At
about 320 miles inland, Brenci’s aircraft again entered
a haze layer, this time much thicker, with
flight visibility reduced to an estimated one mile.
Kyle was worried. He asked Wicker to work up a
message and transmit it back to the other aircraft
to advise them of the weather. His intent was to
give them a heads up of what was coming. Carney
came up on the flight deck and quickly informed
the crew that the restriction to visibility was called
a “haboob,” a weather condition that he and the
CIA pilots had been briefed on for the earlier reconnaissance
flight to Desert One. The condition was
caused by distant thunderstorms that stirred up
fine sand from the desert floor and propelled it up
into the air. The uplifting effect of air currents
associated with thunderstorms could carry the dust
to an altitude of 10,000 feet, and the dust could
remain suspended in the air for hours after the
storm had dissipated. There had been no mention of
a haboob by the JTF weatherman, and its existence
came as a total surprise to Kyle and the crew. 123
Kyle estimated that the second, thicker haboob
was about 100 miles across. When Brenci broke
out of the dust, he was 30 minutes from Desert
One, and the air was crystal clear. Wicker came
back up on the flight deck shortly after Brenci
cleared the second haboob and informed Kyle that
he had been unable to encrypt a message to send
to the other aircraft. Although the SATCOM radio
provided secure communications, Kyle had been
instructed to encrypt everything that went out
over it just in case the Russians were able to intercept
and decipher the message. In the blackedout
cargo compartment, Wicker had been unable
to construct the message from the codebook that
the SATCOM radio operator provided. As a result
the helicopters were already in the dust, along
with Fleming and his four-ship formation. Kyle
silently prayed that the helicopters had missed
the dust since their route of flight was 30 miles to
the east. 124 His prayer was not to be answered.
When Fleming hit the haboob, he slowed down
and began a slight climb so that his three wingmen
could stay in position. He hoped that he
could climb above the dust, but he soon realized
that he was not able to do so. Meanwhile, Townsend
was having trouble updating his INS—there
were no radar targets, and the dust had obscured
any hope of visual updates. The flight plan showed
an Iranian VHF omnidirectional radio (VOR) located
10 miles east of an Iranian airfield, so Townsend
asked Nimmo to turn on the VOR and dial in
the frequency. The idea was to fly over the VOR (a
known point) and update the navigation system.
As the formation proceeded toward the VOR, the
dust thinned slightly, and the crew observed an
airfield’s runway and taxiways clearly visible below
them. The airfield was located in a different
position from what the charts had indicated! There
was no possibility to avoid the airfield, so Fleming
pressed on over it. Townsend got his update over
the VOR moments later as the formation broke out
of the dust. This was the first haboob that Brenci
had encountered, but it had intensified over
Fleming’s route. About an hour later the formation
entered another haboob, but it was not as severe
as the first one. 125 Just as Brenci had done,
Fleming broke out of the second haboob about 30
minutes before Desert One.
With skies clear and visibility unrestricted,
Brenci was bearing down on Desert One. Brenci
was in the left seat on NVGs, Ferkes was in the
right, Guidry was standing behind Brenci in the
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