Listened to an excellent podcast recently where one of the pilots involved gave listeners a step by step accounting of this engagement:

[ Ссылка ]

Decided to consolidate all the known footage with clear audio as provided in the podcast. Audio timeline is compressed as I had to work with existing HUD footage.

Summary Excerpt from "Bogey's & Bandits" - by Robert Gandt

"Quicksand 400, two bandits on your nose at fifteen."

A spike of adrenaline surged through Mongo. The controller had said bandits. Not bogeys. Bandits.

Or had he? Mongo felt a stab of uncertainty. In the radio garble, could he have heard wrong?

Mongo forced himself to switch his attention inside the cockpit—something he hated doing at this critical moment—just for a second. He switched his mission computer to air-to-air mode.

Two sweeps later, there on his radar display, he could see one of the bandits. The radar was electronically identifying the target as a MiG-21 Fishbed fighter. The MiG was at supersonic speed, two thousand feet below.

It was coming directly at him.

Twelve miles range. The bandit was well inside the range of the Hornet's Sparrow anti-aircraft missiles. No one in the flight was shooting. Why the hell not? Had he heard wrong? Hadn't the controller in the Hawkeye said Bandits? Or did he say something else?

Mongo selected a radar-guided Sparrow missile on his arming display. His finger went to the trigger on his control stick.

For a millisecond, he wrestled with his conflicting thoughts: Maybe I heard what I wanted to hear. Maybe it wasn't a MiG. . .

If it was a MiG, the Iraqi pilot would be taking his shot. Just like the MiG did last night on Speicher.

Mongo squeezed the trigger.

Whoom! The five-hundred pound Sparrow missile left its rail like a runaway freight train. Mongo watched the missile accelerate. It was flying in an arc toward—there it was—a speck, growing larger. . . the MiG!

They were closing fast. Mongo got one good glimpse of the fast-moving Soviet-built fighter—just in time to see it erupt in a bright flash. The Sparrow hit its target.

Mongo rolled up on his right wing. He could see it clearly—the tan, desert-colored paint scheme, the insignia of the Iraqi Air Force. The MiG was a mess, crumpled in the middle, burning fiercely, trailing thick smoke, descending like a shotgunned pigeon.

Splash One! Mongo called on the radio.

Splash Two! called someone else.

Two? Mongo had forgotten for a moment: The Hawkeye called out two bandits. Someone had just taken out the second one. Over on the opposite side of the formation, the second MiG was trailing fire and smoke, going down just like the first MiG. Lieutenant Commander Mark Fox, who was Dash Four out on the right flank of the formation, had reached the same conclusion as Mongo: Shoot. Shoot the bastard before he shoots us.

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