Word: bosnian
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...begun six days before, when his F-16 was targeted by an SA-6 surface-to-air missile fired from a Bosnian-Serb stronghold just south of Bihac. Together with Captain Bob Wright, 33, who was flying another F-16 on his wing, O'Grady was conducting one of the 69,000 sorties that have been flown during Operation Deny Flight to enforce a United Nations-mandated no-fly zone over northern Bosnia...
...location of the missile was the result of a shift in defenses recently undertaken by the Bosnian Serbs that had escaped the notice of NATO intelligence. Because it was launched from directly below, the SA-6 was able to hurtle up on the "blind spot" in the underbelly of the F-16's defensive pod, blasting into O'Grady's aircraft with barely 20 seconds' warning and cutting it in half. "We think this was the first time the Serbs fired an SA-6," said an Air Force official. "They waited until just the right moment, and they ambushed...
...miraculously, he was. As his F-16 came apart, O'Grady reached for the ejection lanyard between his knees -- "this beautiful gold handle" he would call it at a press conference on Saturday -- and exploded through the disintegrating cockpit into the skies 26,000 ft. above the Bosnian forests. The ejection seat rocketed O'Grady into the air, its charge searing parts of his neck and face. After punching out of his plane, he opened his parachute manually instead of waiting for it to be released. It was afternoon and visibility from below was all too good...
...admits one Air Force officer. nato strategists initially debated whether to send a Special Forces team to the wreckage site. The idea was swiftly scrapped when it became apparent that O'Grady's plane had crashed in the forests between Banja Luka and Bihac, an area heavily populated with Bosnian Serbs...
...That was probably good," Berndt later said. "It took the edge off us, and it got everybody focused and thinking perhaps a little bit straighter." Then came the "push"-authorization from the awacs to enter Balkan airspace-and the mission was under way. Within minutes the aircraft had reached Bosnian Serb territory. At one point, Admiral William A. Owens, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Lake and said, "Our feet are dry," meaning they were flying over land. The sun was winking through the rugged, fog-draped Balkan terrain as the CH-53s spent the next...