Operation Tiger Rescue

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2008)

Operation Tiger Rescue was the evacuation of United States citizens by the United States Air Force from Yemen following the outbreak of civil war in May 1994.

Yemen had only recently been formed by the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen in 1990. After unification, North Yemen dominated the new country and the southern part of the country attempted to secede.

While the south bore the brunt of the fighting, the capital of Sana'a came under missile and air attack. As fighting intensified, the United States State Department requested the immediate evacution of U.S. citizens, both civilian and government employees, from Yemen.

[edit] Evacuation Operation

The only U.S. military forces available for this short-notice tasking were C-130s of the 41st Airlift Squadron deployed from their home base of Pope Air Force Base to King Abdul Aziz Air Base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. When the unit received its tasking, it quickly developed an initial plan under the direction of the deployed operations officer, Lieutenant Colonel Kurt Kaiser.

First, a single C-130 would take Lt Col Kaiser and a small support team into Sana'a's international airport. There, he would meet with the U.S. Embassy staff and determine the best method for evacuating U.S. citizens. At the time Lt Col Kaiser and his staff had no idea how many people would need to be airlifted. It quickly became apparent that there were many more U.S. citizens in Yemen than had been suspected. What had initially appeared to be a small airlift requiring perhaps three or four flights quickly grew to a multi-day operation using all of the C-130s deployed to Dhahran.

Because of the uncertain security situation in Sana'a - due to the missile and air attacks - C-130s from Dhahran flew a three hour flight from Dhahran to a holding point northwest of the capital. When the aircraft approached Sana'a, the Embassy personnel would gather a group of evacuees on the airport. The aircrews would put their planes into holding, then await a radio call from Lt Col Kaiser. When the passengers were ready at the airfield and no air attacks were taking place, Lt Col Kaiser would approve the aircraft to land. The crews would make a quick approach, load the evacuees, keeping their engines running, then depart for the three hour flight back to Dhahran.

The first day of the airlift was composed almost entirely of unsupported C-130s. However, deployed E-3 AWACS and F-15s began providing support to the C-130s on the second day. While rebel MiGs approached the holding C-130s at times, they never came close enough to pose a danger.

Once other nations realized the U.S. was not only evacuating its citizens, but also providing air cover, they began evacuating their own citizens, but these operations were not part of Tiger Rescue.

[edit] Origin of the name

The name Tiger Rescue was decided upon during an early planning meeting at Dhahran, and was chosen because the 41st Airlift Squadron had recently come under the control the the 23d Fighter Group, nicknamed the Flying Tigers.