The resulting photographs enabled the Mirage pilots of No. 81 Squadron to launch a successful raid on Sirri on Aug. 12, 1986. Moreover, the affair inspired fresh thinking in the top ranks of the Iraqi air force.
One idea was to use a modified business jet to reach deep into the Persian Gulf entirely unmolested by Iranian interceptors. Furthermore, Iraqis expected that a larger aircraft would be suitable for carrying two AM.39 Exocets and thus might deliver a more powerful punch against supertankers loading crude at Iranian terminals.
This was something that appeared very important to Iraqi planners, as the sole Mirage F.1EQ variant equipped with Exocets available to the Iraqi air force at that time, the F.1EQ-5, could carry only one such missile.
And the Iraqis’ experience using AM.39s against tankers in the period 1980 to 1986 had showed that these large ships were not only quite survivable — only four merchants were outright sunk by Exocets during eight years of war — but also that a large number of Exocets were either decoyed by Iranian countermeasures, malfunctioned or failed to detonate even when they did hit their targets.
Claiming they needed a training aircraft for their Mirage F.1EQ-5 pilots, the Iraqis asked French firm Thales — the Iraqis’ primary contractor for all Mirage-related orders — to modify the Falcon 50 YI-ALE with the radar and weapons system of that Mirage variant.
A French advisor and an Iraqi air force technician next to an AM.39 Exocet missile installed underneath a Mirage F.1EQ-5, at Saddam air base in 1984. Hugues Deguillebon Collection photo
Let the bird fly
Always eager to satisfy what was then a major export customer for their arms, the French worked fast. All the conversion work was completed by January 1987.
Initial test flights by Iraqi pilots revealed a number of glitches, but the French scrambled to rectify all of these and YI-ALE was delivered to Iraq on Feb. 9, 1987 via Corsica, southern Italy, Greece and Turkey.
Among the pilots of No. 81 Squadron — the Iraqi air force’s sole unit flying Exocet-equipped Mirage F.1EQ-5s — the Falcon 50 became known as “Susanna.”
Following additional training-flights in Iraq, Susanna was prepared for its ultimate test — its first combat sortie. Early on May 17, 1987, one of the pilots from No. 81 Squadron — let’s call him “Maj. Muhammad” for the sake of convenience, because the current situation in Iraq precludes divulging his identity — re-deployed Susana from Saddam air base, better known in the United States as Qarayyah West, to Wahda air base, the former RAF Shoibiyah situated 45 kilometers southeast of Basra.
There, armorers equipped Susanna with two AM.39 Exocets.
Once the aircraft was ready, the crew began the long wait for their further orders. Shortly after the nightfall, the headquarters at Wahda air base received the coded message, “Let the bird fly,” which authorized the crew to fly an operational sortie over the Persian Gulf — in the same fashion Iraqi-operated Mirage F.1EQ-5s used to do.
Flying south through a pitch-black night, Maj. Mohammad took the usual course along what Iraqi air force pilots called “Mirage Alley,” a fictitious aerial corridor parallel to the Kuwaiti and Saudi coasts that runs all the way down to a point north of Bahrain. Then he made a 90-degree turn left toward Iran.
Approaching the Iraq-declared exclusion zone, Mohammad re-checked his position on a map and then activated his radar, initiating the search for any large surface target. Before soon, a blip appeared on his radar screen. From experience, he could say the target was a medium-size naval vessel underway along the edge of the prohibited zone, and looking as though it were about to enter it.
Mohammad concluded that the skipper of the ship in question played it smart — that he attempted to navigate along the very edge of the exclusion zone in order to avoid coming under attack. That is what prompted him to engage.
His Exocets were already hot — powered up and receiving targeting data from Susanna’s radar and weapons system — and thus ready. Mohammad flipped the cover on the stick and pressed the red trigger. He immediately sensed the heavy missile separating from the underwing pylon and heard the cracking sound of the rocket motor. A bright flash appeared in front of his aircraft, extending away and turning slightly toward the target.
By that point in time, Mohammad was a seasoned veteran with more than 1,000 hours in combat, mostly in Mirage F.1EQs. He had already fired dozens of Exocets in combat, also by night, and thus this mission wasn’t very different than his earlier experiences.
What
was different about this mission however, was that Susanna was carrying
two missiles. Correspondingly, Mohammad repeated the targeting procedure and fired another AM.39 before making a sharp turn to the left, returning to a northern course and heading for the safety of Wahda air base.
The last appearance of Susanna. In 1989, Iraqi National T.V. aired a short documentary showing the modified Falcon 50 including the nose with a Cyrano IVM radar, a Harold pod under the centerline and one Exocet anti-ship missile under each wing. Iraqi National T.V. capture
Post scriptum
Maj. Mohammad didn’t know that he fired two missiles at a U.S. warship. He also did not know that his flight was being tracked by a U.S. Air Force E-3A Sentry radar early-warning aircraft flying over Saudi Arabia, the crew of which — upon learning about attack on
Stark — asked two F-15 Eagle interceptors of the Royal Saudi Air Force to intercept and force him to land.
The Saudis declined.
While Mohammad continued a successful career with the Iraqi air force, Susanna never flew in combat again. Although Iraqis suspected that U.S. intelligence knew it was a modified Falcon 50 business jet that holed a well-armed and well-protected frigate and killed 37 American personnel, they never revealed its existence, because this would have contradicted the version of the affair the Iraqi foreign ministry had sold
