Nobody's Planes

On Monday, February 28, at 06:31 a.m. local time, a multinational crew of the AWACS radar plane, that was on patrol over the Adriatic within the framework of the operation "DENY FLIGHT" over the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, detected an aircraft in the air about 5 knots (9km) southeast of Banja Luka. In accordance with the routine procedure, and since the planes were headed south-southeast the crew radioed one of two pairs of the F-16C fighters, that are a part of the NATO force and were on regular patrol over B-H in the vicinity of Mostar. One pair of the F-16Cs was equipped for the attacks on the ground (in case U.N. troops needed support) and the other carried air-to-air missiles. The latter pair took on a task to identify the violators of the no-fly zone.

Few moments before 06:35, the F-16C fighters arriving from the north-east detected on their radar a formation comprised of six airplanes headed south at 280 knots (518 k.p.h). The lead fighter requested and received a permission to descend and establish a visual contact. According to the statement the pilot made later on the planes were identified as six Jastreb jets flying in a classical rhomboid formation (one at the head, two pairs, and one at the back). At 06:35 sharp AWACS issued the first warning radioing the planes "to land or exit the airspace of B-H or be engaged." The formation of six Jastreb planes continued their flight while the F-16C fighters followed them at a higher altitude (about 10km above to the left, behind).

At 06:42 the lead F-16C fighter reiterated the warning to the violators, "to land or exit the airspace or be engaged." There was no response, but the formation of six Jastreb planes descended and flew as low as 30m from the ground, hugging the terrain. The lead fighter requested a permission to attack the violators. While they waited for clearance, the American pilots claimed that the formation ascended to the altitude of about 3,000m and spread in order to bomb an installation in Novi Travnik. The F-16C pilots reported seeing the explosions on the ground. At 06:43 Lieutenant General James Chambers, the officer on duty at a NATO command center in Vicenza, gave the permission for the attack through a direct radio connection via AWACS. The patrol confirmed it received clearance to fire.

At 06:45 the lead F-16C fighter fired the first missile (type AMRAAM) and destroyed the first plane which turned into a "a fire ball" somewhere near Sipovo. The people of Bugojno reported to have seen "the planes swirling in the sky" at that time. At 06:47 and 06:48 the same fighter fired two more missiles, type Sidewinder, and downed two more planes: one landed near Mrkonjic-Grad and the other near Sanski Most. It seems that the formation of Jastreb planes broke up immediately after the bombing and began maneuvering over the hills and valleys of Western Bosnia to escape. One minute is a long time in a given situation: Jastreb has a maximum speed of about 820 k.p.h. and can cover 13.6km in a minute.

While the chase continued, another patrol of the F-16C fighters arrived to help. At least one pilot in this patrol requested a permission to drop the bombs for the attacks on the targets on the ground and join the chase. The permission was denied and the lead fighter of the other patrol at 06:50 shot down the fourth Jastreb near Kapljuh, 28 km away from the border with the Republic of Serb Krajina. The map tells us that Jastreb planes fled towards the closest border of the no-fly zone in B-H where the chase stops. At 06:59 the two remaining Jastreb planes left the airspace of B-H and entered the airspace of the Republic of Serb Krajina. The incident thus ended. It lasted 28 minutes; 5 AMRAAM and Sidewinder missiles were fired, four hit and one missed the target; four Jastreb planes were shot down; three pilots died and one hopefully survived by catapulting. The NATO pact, as an organization, was engaged in combat for the first time in its entire history since 1949.

On Monday, the same day, all countries and armies bordering Bosnia issued official announcements categorically denying that those six Jastreb planes belonged to them. General Manojlo Milovanovic, the Chief-of-staff of the Army of the Serb Republic in Bosnia, categorically denied that the planes had taken off from Mahovljani, north of Banja Luka, and supported the original statement by Nebojsa Radmanovic, the local press officer. The Yugoslav Army (VJ) repeated several times, also categorically, that the airplanes never left the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ever since it was declared. The Republic of Croatia accused the Serb side as they have no Jastreb planes. Colonel Kosta Novakovic of the Serb Krajina Army was the last to issue an announcement later in the day. In the evening he denied there had been any flights of their air-force. As far as the air-force is concerned, the Bosnians have several helicopters.

From the point of view of U.N. and NATO (engaged in enforcing the Resolution 816) it does not make any difference whose planes had been shot down. As far as they are concerned those could have belonged to cigarette dealers who hired someone to bomb their competitors (it would not be the first time that weaponry and tactical actions in Bosnia were rented at a well-known and already set price...). On the other hand, the situation is not so simple if viewed from the perspective of those who owned six Jastreb planes and, particularly, the employers and superiors of six pilots. First and foremost, one Jastreb plane used to cost, while still produced and sold on the markets, about 2.5 million dollars; its current value is immeasurable since it is no longer produced, it has no substitute and it will be a long time before the Serbs produce a plane. To a 10-million-dollar expense should be added three pilots, who are humans, and cost of their training. Who dared risk so much and why? Cigarette dealers highly unlikely to have been the ones to foot the bill for such a risk...It all has got to do with politics.

Let's remind ourselves why it's risky to fly combat planes over the territory of B-H.

In October 1992, Resolution 781 was adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations. The Resolution banned flights of all air-forces over the territory of B-H, except in the case a special permission was obtained from the U.N. organs. This came after a series of instances when the Bosnian Serbs used the aviation against a range of targets. The Resolution was mainly respected in essence: from October 1992 to the end of March 1993 it was violated only several hundred times, but these were non-combat flights. Helicopters were used by all sides equally for the transport of supplies and the wounded, while soldiers were being evacuated from one mayhem to another. The Croats supplied Fikret Abdic in Kladusa and everything was tolerable. Problems arose in Eastern Bosnia in the middle of March 1993. U.N. military observers and AWACS surveillance planes reported combat action by small propeller-driven planes which flew from Western Serbia and bombed the targets in Eastern Bosnia. P-2 Kraguj, AN-2 and Cessna planes were spotted in action, there was talk of patriot pilots and some aeronautical clubs in Western Serbia, grass-covered runways in the mountains and on the right bank of the Drina River, the planes once in the possession of the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina stolen from the Belgrade (and other) airports and "the Drina Corps of the Air-Force of the Bosnian Serb Army." The official comments about these were similar to those made nowadays: the General staff of the Yugoslav Army claimed "it had no knowledge of them," although some officers complained that "somebody was trying to frame them," then accused the Croats of flying. The Serb Republic in Bosnia accused UNPROFOR of making provocations once again.

To this very day it remains unclear who needed all that since there were no tactical reasons for using a "Mickey Mouse" air-force. The Security Council, however, used the opportunity to do something, even if it may have been anything, and adopted Resolution 816, which introduced regular patrolling of the Bosnian sky and shooting down the violators of the no-fly zone in accordance with Resolution 781 which dates way back. NATO was engaged as the only organization which has resources for such an undertaking and patrolling began mid April. AWACS planes over the Adriatic and Hungary conducted surveillance of the Bosnian territory, and patrols of various types of fighters (F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, Tornado, Harrier, Mirage 2000) flew over the terrain in shifts. Ever since the operation began until Monday, over 170 NATO planes (fighters, AWACSs, tankers for refueling in the air) made about 13,650 sorties over Bosnia (several planes ended in the Adriatic due to a damage). In the same time period, the three warring sides violated the no-fly zone over 1,400 times and nothing happened - until Monday, February 28. Why?

Since the beginning of a serious enforcement of Resolution 781 (April 1993) something that surpasses a tacit agreement between U.N. and all warring sides was in effect and had to do with two things: firstly, helicopters are free to fly; secondly, planes will not be touched unless they are armed or aren't too obviously the type intended for combat. In practice, AWACS planes would immediately send a patrol on the spot, the pilots would look into the situation and conclude whether to attack or not on the basis of the radar-generated data if the visibility happened to be low. That's how everybody flew happily around, either by helicopters or propeller-driven planes, without having to face the consequences for almost the whole year. The most frequent violators of the flight ban were the helicopters of all three sides. The Croats flew around, supplying their troops on the front (often with parachutes), transported soldiers, supplies and the wounded. The Serbs did the same, mainly combining the evacuation of the wounded with military needs. The Bosnians (mostly from Zenica, where they have several big helicopters Mi-8 and Mi-17V6) transported anything one can think of; on one occasion they were seen loading a cannon, ten boxes of ammunition and a crew and flying them to the area of Vitez. The helicopters often flew with the navigation lights on at night, which only goes to prove how relaxed the atmosphere had been. All that was implied by the tacit agreement. The Monday's case, however, was the first violation by well-armed jets obviously intended for combat. The first such case since April until today. Moreover, those 6 planes were caught in flagranti, i.e. bombing Novi Travnik. A possibility that neither the pilots nor their superior officers knew who they were dealing with when they decided to go into action on Monday morning is ruled out. If nothing, they have been hearing the thunder of jets over Bosnia for almost a year and even complained about it.

So, why has somebody decided to risk six planes and six pilots on Monday morning? According to the data of NATO, six Jastreb planes attacked one target only - the factory "Bratstvo" (translates as 'brotherhood') (should the name sound ironic to you, it's your problem) in Novi Travnik. Reports of attacks on Vitez and Bugojno have not been confirmed. The "Bratstvo" factory used to produce components for tanks, heavy artillery, mortars and multiple mortar launchers and was the only factory in Yugoslavia which could make a cannon of a caliber higher than 40mm. In the summer of 1992 combat planes of the Bosnian Serb Army destroyed the factory. Besides, it remained isolated from the influx of components, raw materials and all the rest, as well as without electricity. It is not clear why the factory was not fired on with artillery. It is within the range (less than 15km from Donji Vakuf), and artillery shells could do greater damage without any risks. VREME's associate in Sarajevo was told that should the Croat-Bosnian agreement work the "Bratstvo" factory could become a big problem for the Serb side, since it could be repaired through a joint effort of the Bosnians and the Croats. On the other hand, it remains uncertain what other targets would have found themselves under attack of those six Jastreb planes if they had not been surprised from the back...

Apart from a military-industrial interpretation, there is also a political school of thought regarding the incident. No one in the right mind would question the fact that the six Jastreb planes belong to some of the Serbs outside Serbia. Yugoslavia is far away and there is no way for six planes to reach the area below Banja Luka and escape being noticed. Croatia hasn't got Jastreb planes, and they could have not flown in from Libya or Zambia (where a few aircraft were exported at one point). The political school of thought offers two explanations of the incident. One says that the attack had been previously agreed for the benefit of Croatia in a spirit of recent brotherhood and unity in Bosnia and a practice of renting the equipment and services to brothers Croats. The other more cynical explanation supports an argument that there is a fraud aimed at undermining the Croat-Bosnian agreement, which is along the following lines: they are signing the agreement with you on one side, and, on the other, they stab you it the back by ordering air-strikes. Regardless of which explanation is correct, and it is still too early to claim anything with certainty, a fundamental question is still valid: is it all about a heroic love of adventure or about taking a huge calculated risk? No wonder everybody has disclaimed those unfortunate planes: everybody claims their stake in a victory but a defeat remains an orphan. Let's return to the facts.

The military sources in Washington (Pentagon), Brussels, Paris and Vicenza have in one way or another but mainly unofficially stressed one circumstance which the officials at NATO and the great powers have skipped over silently. According to some short and isolated signal which AWACS had on Monday morning before the incident took place, some activity had been noticed around the airport Udbina in the Republic of Serb Krajina. AWACS did not fly over Hungary that morning. There would be more facts if it did: the terrain on the north is flatter making it more difficult to hide away from the radar. Not too long after the incident the sources in the Republic of Serb Krajina offered their own version: on Sunday, February 27, the airport Udbina was put on alert, and at dawn on Monday six Jastreb planes of the Air-Force of the Serb Krajina Army took off in the direction of Bosnia. Using a radar shadow of high mountains they sneaked to the spot southeast of Banja Luka where AWACS detected them. We all know what happened next. According to our sources, one of the pilots belongs to the Air-Force of the Yugoslav Army, two to the Air-Force of the Bosnian Serb Army, and another two to the Air-Force of the Serb Krajina Army. One of the two remaining planes reached Udbina, and the other made a forced landing in the vicinity of Jajce. This report does not match the one issued by the AWACS crew, which says that the remaining planes of the Republic of Serb Krajina crossed over to the Bosnian Serb Republic and landed at Mahovljani. It is well known that the services of the air-force have been provided to the Bosnian Serb Army, the Croatian Democratic Union and the Army of the Autonomous Region of Western Bosnia in the past for a fee. During the session of the Assembly of the Republic of Serb Krajina on March 1, President Milan Martic at one point asked that the session be closed to the public so that he could present important and significant "information about the military and security situation."

"Montena", a new press agency in Podgorica, Montenegro, reported the same day that three volunteer pilots with the Krajina Air-Force were missing: Lieutenant-pilots Pesic, Sisarica and Zaric. Those who listened to the radio-traffic on the air-force frequencies on Monday morning claimed that six Jastreb planes had a connection with Udbina, Banja Luka and Pljesevica, where the radar station is located. Pljesevica, whose radar covers the entire Adriatic basin and a half of Italy, warned Jastreb planes sometime between 06:35 and 06:40 that the American fighters were behind them.

There is enough ground to assume that Jastreb planes managed to sneak though the mountain valleys, in the radar shadow, believing they would be able to finish the job quickly and disappear across the border, which would take about 6 minutes of flying time. Jastreb is an utterly out-dated plane which was in a process of withdrawal form the service when the war broke out in 1991 and was being replaced with Orao and Galeb G-4. Unlike this two planes, Jastreb did not have a serially built-in receiver of the radar signal (a relatively simple and cheap product available in every average general store). This piece of equipment provides a signal to the pilot that he is in somebody's radar array. But, these would not have done any good even if they had had them: once these new fighters lock the target in the sights of the missiles such as AMRAAM and Sidewinder, they do not leave much of chance, especially not to a disputable Jastreb. It seems that the fourth pilot, who is said to have catapulted before taking a hit, was the only one who got it what it was all about.

All these pilots are graduates of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) school and their generals must have known and taken into account all the above mentioned circumstances. What is it they relied on when they took such a risk? The Russians who soak their feet in "the warm seas"? The new "Yalta"? One should be held accountable for such adventurism and gentlemen generals should look into whose responsibility it is. Not because of U.N. or NATO; they don't care who flew, but because of their armies, pilots, politicians and peoples. It is not difficult to establish all the facts: pilots and planes need to be counted and that's all. This will show who and what is missing and where. A major from Bangladesh, in the capacity of an observer in Mahovljani, claims there were no take-offs there on Monday morning. Other observers complained they had been denied access and their vehicles happened to be stolen those days. It is well known how many Jastreb planes are in the possession of the Air-Force of the Bosnian Serb Army, and of the Air-Force of the Serb Krajina Army. Those who patrol over Bosnia and have their satellites over the Balkans know it. They listened to the radio-traffic. One person who knows about these things says that they know, but it does not suit them to tell now when they just managed to make the Croats and the Bosnians sign something. Jasushi Akashi put it in the best possible way during the talks with confused Radovan Karadzic the same day, "We all hope that this will be an isolated incident." And, it most likely will.