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Thursday, February 14, 1991
U.S. pilot lands disabled jet hit by shrapnel over Iraq
By David Alexander
AT AN AIR BASE IN NORTHEASTERN SAUDI ARABIA (UPI) -- Lt. Danny Martin had just completed a bombing run against Iraqi artillery and was climbing up to make a second pass when he heard the engine on his A-10 Warthog begin to whine and felt a shudder run through the craft.
"I looked at the instruments and everything was fluctuating a little bit,'' said Martin, 27, of Miami. `"I noticed that the right engine temperature was increasing and the fluctuations ... were getting a little larger.''
He didn't realize it at the time, but a piece of Iraqi shrapnel had just cut an ugly hole through his right engine, causing serious damage.
He did know the problem was getting worse and he was going to have to turn off one engine over hostile territory.
"Your heart starts racing a little bit,'' Martin said. `"You're talking to yourself the whole time. You're going, 'God, if you let this get out of hand ... you're not going to get this back home. ... I don't want to punch out over here. God, POW (prisoner of war). ... I don't want to.'''
"You're thinking all kinds of things,'' he said. "But more than anything else you're going, 'OK, it's flying,' and you're trying to reassure yourself. I'm the kind of person who likes to tell myself positive stuff. And I was going, 'OK, it's flying. I got one good engine. I can get out of here. I can get out of here. I'm headed south. Find me, find me.'''
Martin's flight leader was aware of the problem. The two A-10 jets, which are built to provide close air support for ground troops, had been
bombing six Iraqi artillery pieces arrayed in the shape of a ``C.''
They were planning to continue the raid but pulled away when Martin had trouble.
The flight leader positioned his own aircraft so he could survey Martin's A- 10 for damage, but he could not see the small hole caused by a piece of shrapnel that apparently entered through the bottom of the green aircraft's engine, which sits high on the rear of the fuselage.
The lieutenant had been flying a mission just north of the Saudi border, so he pointed the nose of his Warthog south and began praying he could at least make it back to friendly territory in case he had to bail out.
"I could see the border, and the closer and closer I got to it the more and more comfortable I felt,'' Martin said. "Then after crossing the border ... I started going, 'OK, I'm over the border. Please keep that other engine running. If I lose that engine then I got to punch and I don't want to punch.''
In the end he didn't have to bail out. He landed the Warthog at an air base in northeastern Saudi Arabia. It was only the second A-10 aircraft to land at the base with serious damage from anti-aircraft fire.
Martin didn't realize he'd been hit until after going over the plane with a mechanic. After returning, he climbed onto the A-10 using a
wooden step ladder and examined the holes and damage to the engine.
"This is really the second aircraft that we've seen that had mentionable damage, the second one where a major component was hit,'' said Senior Master Sgt. Brian Beebe, 40, of Sacramento, Calif. "The initial hit was from small ground fire.''
The piece of metal entered the lower part of the engine and lodged in the jet's nose cone. Martin said the nose cone apparently broke loose and smashed the fans on the jet, compounding the initial damage. At some point another metal object smashed a hole in the top of the engine.
"We never saw any of the rounds, never saw the guns fire,'' Martin said. "We didn't notice any of it (anti-aircraft fire) out there when we were leaving either. So it came out of nowhere. Lucky bullet.''
The lieutenant, a member of the 76th Tactical Fighter Squadron out of England Air Force Base in Louisiana, said the incident put all his training to the test.
"I've always wondered, OK, what was it going to be like if I ever lost an engine,'' Martin said. "`What was I going to do? Was I going to go crazy and accidentally shut both engines down? And you don't even have time to think about it. It just happens and you just do it right and it's great.''
Above: An F-15 fills up from a KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft. Below: A soldier burns camp waste in a barrel ; At bottom: humvees filing up with gas in the desert., and a herd of camels crosses the Saudi desert.