Know When to Quit

by Air Cdre M Kaiser Tufail

We had just taken-off from Masroor in a dual-seat Mirage-III and were trying to negotiate a turn out of traffic, an otherwise low-risk manoeuvre, were it not for the 8/8 cloud cover and a pitch dark night. I was sure that we would be able to get on with what the Navy had asked us to do – simulate an attack on their ships, which they had specially deployed out in the deep sea. (Someone in the Squadron had whispered, tongue-in-cheek, that the deployment was actually one of those annual Dubai cruises, though I don’t think the Navy would be much amused by that.) Getting back to the turn, it seemed that there was something wrong. I was quick to realise that the ‘Bezu ball’ (attitude and heading indicator) had frozen. After exchanging notes with the ‘guy in the back seat’ (GIBS), I decided to press on. After all, there was a standby artificial horizon, a heading indicator and yet another magnetic compass; and surely, between the two of us we had over a thousand hours on the Mirage and nearly 4,000 hours as QFIs. The burden was further lessened, so I thought, because the GIBS was also the Flight Commander of his Unit.

After rolling out on a south-westerly heading, we decided to cross-check with the standby compass. I jerked the compass a bit to get its light going as advised by the GIBS, since these beat-up dual seaters always responded positively to pats and thumps. He asked me if I could see something on the darned instrument to which I replied that I was trying to get my torch out. Just then I felt something strange – my right thigh was wet. It didn’t take long for my GIBS’ chuckle to turn into a gasp when I told him that the liquid was actually kerosene dripping from the standby compass! After the initial shock was over, we again exchanged notes, declared faith in the remaining magnetic flux valve and decided to press on. After all there was only one more turn required and then we would be back on home stretch. The Navy ships had been out at sea for three consecutive nights and had been getting frustrated at our daily weather aborts; so what the hell, we thought.

We had managed to set our bearings right, climbed to the desired altitude and were sufficiently accustomed to the clouds all around us. My GIBS had started to amuse me with his favourite whistle and I acknowledged how romantic it was to be over the sea at one o’clock at night. I thought it would be a good idea to put the brass in the ATC at ease by letting them know that all was hunky dory. (The Squadron Commander, OC Flying Wing and the Base Commander had decided to be ‘out in the field with the boys’, and had hunkered up to the ATC tower specially for this night.) I pressed the mic button to inform Masroor that we were outbound, on course and looking good. The reply was a hiss and a crackle, followed by what sounded like a burp. I again consulted my GIBS who assured me that the message had been ‘positively’ received and it was just that radios worked that way when on the other end of the line-of-sight. So we pressed on.

We should have been about fifteen minutes into our sojourn when, through a break in the clouds, I saw a red light on the horizon … then another. In fact the two lights were identical, on either side of the windshield. The GIBS theorised that it was an airliner approaching head-on. I agreed with him simply for the sake of politeness, for I was too awe-struck to argue about the basics of aircraft lighting. Since both lights seemed stationary, we immediately skewed our eyeballs off-center to prevent auto-kinesis getting the better of us. The lights started to become bigger and, at the rate they were closing in we thought they were fighters, but from where, my GIBS couldn’t conjure up a guess. Guesswork soon transformed to reality when we saw two F-14s zip past us on either side and, through a sweeping arc, settled on our wingtips. They stayed with us as if expecting us to toss our ID cards over to them. I grabbed the mic button and announced on ‘Guard’ channel that we meant no harm and were on a ‘routine training mission’. The F-14s didn’t seem to budge, as if sceptical about the last part of my message. Since we didn’t get a response from the F-14s, I concluded that the hiss, crackle and burp that we last heard from Masroor were actually the death throes of our radio. So here we were, in deep sea, with two hostiles on our wing and no means to calm them down. The F-14s took their time to do a ‘body search’ on us with their FLIR, LLTV, X-rays and what have you. Finally, they let us go, as if convinced that we really had missed their NOTAM advising “all aircraft to identify themselves before entering a 100 miles ID zone around the USN carrier group in the Arabian Sea”. My GIBS suggested that we file a ‘near miss’ report when we got back. I suggested that this should be done only in case a NOTAM had not been sent to Masroor. In the event, prudence prevailed and we did not file a ‘near miss’.

The ordeal over, we were expecting the ships to be only a few minutes away. We found a patch in the clouds and, with nothing but fear of God in our hearts, sliced down towards the waves for a visual search. As luck would have it, the ships were caught with their lights on. We made a tame flyby before making a quick exit, since fuel was not enough for a showy afterburner blast-off over their decks.

Next came the turn onto a reciprocal heading to Masroor. My GIBS chipped in with his calculations and said that a 30º-bank turn for 90 seconds would get us on course to Base. I punched clock and turned but after a few seconds, its winding mechanism ran out of energy and quit. I quickly switched to the “one thousand and one, one thousand and two” drill but ran into a tongue twister and messed up the timings and the turn. My GIBS again opened up with his banter and advised that indeed, we were on course. By this time we were again in clouds but relieved that all that was required was a check of heading flowing in from the flux valve, plus restricted head movements to preserve our orientation. I also gave out a few calls announcing our impending arrival, just in case the radio was in the intermittent mode. We were gingerly proceeding back, complimenting each other on having performed such a difficult mission at this unearthly hour. Just then, I picked up an eerie glow from the clouds, right in front of me. I had never experienced anything like this before. As anxious seconds ticked by, we saw a strange lop-sided mass emerge upwards. It was shining bright and awfully frightening. Me and my GIBS were going lunatic at this strange sight – lunatic, as in luna or the moon. Yes, indeed, it was the moon. Moonrise at half past one at night, seen from 20,000 feet. Of course! So it was moonrise, but in that case we were heading east whereas we should have been going north-east. This meant that we had flown almost fifteen minutes on the wrong heading and, if our estimates were correct, a reception party should have been getting airborne to intercept us off the Gujerat-Kathiawar coast. We quickly got back to the overworked flux valve and settled for a correction due North. The TACAN should have picked up a signal from Masroor now, but it seemed the needle just wasn’t getting turned on. The OFF flag on the DME window was equally frustrating to watch.

Only holy verses and heavy breathing were now punctuating the silence in the cockpit. We would never do such a thing again, we told ourselves – if we got back alive. There would be an inquiry; we might be taken off flying, but we wanted to be back, safe in any case.

Another glow started to appear on the horizon, which my GIBS, after having recovered his composure, declared to be that of Karachi. I looked at the fuel. It seemed just enough to get us over what appeared to be the city. Cloud cover over the city was total. The yellowish apron lights of Karachi airport started to become faintly visible. Masroor was completely obscured with clouds. An instrument letdown would have been a sensible option if we had a serviceable TACAN. Under the circumstances, we thought it best to do a visual descent, North of the airport. So we commenced another hairy slice-down, leaning on each other’s confidence. After several minutes of anxiety-laden manoeuvring, we broke clouds at 2,000 feet and immediately charged for a straight-in approach for Masroor. The landing was uneventful except for a volley of green flares thrown in for a homecoming.

As we taxied to the tarmac, there was a fleet of cars, with their occupants nervously pacing around. As we got off, an ashen-faced Squadron Commander stepped forward to greet us. The Base Commander also came up to say hello and added, that the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) had just rung up and was very pleased. This we couldn’t believe, but the Base Commander insisted that from now on, the AOC would be able to stand tall in front of the Admirals, for we had proven equal to the task!

While we bloodied the Form-781 with angry write-ups, I counted the occasions when we could have aborted: there were at least five. Herein, boys, is a lesson: never mind how important the mission, KNOW WHEN TO QUIT.