O
N JANUARY 19, 1991, US
Navy pilot LT William ‘TC’
Costen and navigator LT
Charlie ‘Tuna’ Turner of
VA-155 approached their
target while ying below
1,000ft, at night, in an A-6E Intruder
carrying 12 Mk40 DST (Destructor) sea
mines. Theirs was one of four Intruders
in the strike group and their target was
a shallow ship channel connecting the
Iraqi port of Umm Qasr to the Persian
Gulf. During their approach, Iraqi
ZSU-23-4 anti-aircraft artillery re was
heavy, but aimed too high — the tracers
visible in the darkness. The weather
was foggy.
Once over the channel, the Intruders
dropped their mines, before turning and
heading back to USS Ranger. Suddenly
anti-aircraft re struck Costen and Turner’s
jet. Their wingmen reported seeing a
bright ash in the fog. Their hearts sank.
Both crew members were killed.Intruder pilot CDR Steven ‘Boots’ Barnes
— another aviator on that mission —
recalled observing three partially sunken
ships in the area during a later ght, all
possible victims of the Intruder’s mines.
‘Perhaps we had been successful,’ Barnes
wrote in an article for the Intruder
Association. They knew the risks going in.
Costen and Turner, on their rst combat
tour, volunteered to take part in the mine-
laying mission.
This was the last time the US Navy
carried out an aerial mining mission
during wartime. Before the Umm Qasr
operation, the last major sortie of this
type was 1972’s Operation ‘Pocket Money’,
when mine-dropping A-7 Corsair IIs
sealed o the North Vietnamese port of
Haiphong. But in the 21st century, ying
close to the water, along heavily defended
strategic waterways, is too dangerous and
not worth the cost in potential casualties.
It’s all the more serious versus what the
Pentagon terms ‘near-peer’ adversariesTAKING A LOOK BEHIND THE HEADLINES
BYBY ROBERT BECKHUSEN ROBERT BECKHUSEN
MINE-LAYING MISSIONS
such as Russia and China, which
possess considerably more advanced
air defenses than Iraq in 1991 or North
Vietnam in 1972.A returning mission
The US military mine-laying mission is
returning, with increasing assistance
from the US Air Force. One reason is the
likelihood that commercial sea lanes will
emerge as a priority target for interdiction
during any future con icts. Much of
Russia’s container shipping sails to and
from St Petersburg and must pass through
the narrow Gulf of Finland. China’s
reliance on world trade makes Beijing
highly vulnerable to a sustained mining
campaign o the country’s harbors. Yet
the US Navy’s mine-laying capabilities
have deteriorated to submarines and
maritime patrol aircraft.
The USAF, however, is picking up
the reins. It can deploy mines in mass
numbers, a single B-1B Lancer being
capable of carrying 84 500lb Mk62In early June 2018,
two B-1Bs took off from
Dyess AFB, Texas, and fl ew
to the Baltic Sea, dropping
inert Mk62s as part of NATO’s
annual ‘BALTOPS’ exercises
Left top to bottom:
US Navy A-6E
Intruder crews
were experts at
low-level mine-
laying missions.
US Navy
A 345th
Expeditionary
Bomb Squadron
aircraft weapons
specialist loads
Mk62 Quickstrike
mines onto a B-1B.
USAF/SrA Emily
Copeland60 October 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net