Iraqi Mirage F.1EQ vs EF-111A Iraqi perspective

[oldiaf]

It is well known to western media the account of an EF-111A maneuvering an Iraqi Mirage F.1EQ to the ground .. The victory was nontheless awarded to Capt. Graeter F-15C as his second victory at that first night of the war .
The Iraqis however denies this .... In fact they claims the opposite an Iraqi Mirage F.1EQ downing an American EF-111A ...
2 things to notice :
1 - Iraqi AF lost a MiG-23ML from Squadron 73 over Saad/H2 AB that night few min. After taking off .. Pilot Capt. Hasan was KIA .... No one knows what happened to him .... ( might be the one downed by Graeter or the above case and the EF-111A confused it with a Mirage ... No body knows ) .
2- The USAF mentioned an EF-111A that was crashed trying to evade a missile fired by enemy aircraft and crashed outside Iraqi air space .. But this happened well after the first night ... Exactly on Feb 13 ... Wether it is the same one and reported later or different issue below is the account of an Iraqi Pilot who claimed an EF-111A in the first night.

The account of Lt. Nafi Najim Aljubori
I was stationed at Saad AB ( H2 ) with Squadron 79 before the war ..... In the night of 16/17 Jan 1991 we received an urgent call to scramble and intercept enemy aircrafts as the war has started ... I was No.2 (plane No.4021) in a formation of 2 aircrafts but my Formation leader airplane malfunctioned before take off so he called to abort the mission .... I asked for permission to take off solo ... And he agreed after some hesitation as I was just Lt. and had little combat experience ( I was gratuated from AF academy in 1986 and went to Greece for advance weapon school training on Mirage F.1C airplane ).
Take off time was 0306 .... The only thing I could see through the canopy was AAA , SAMs and explosions all over the horizon ... I switched my Radar ON and many targets appeared on my screen ( unlike many other pilots who claimed their Radars was jammed ) ... The GCI directed me on a solo target north-west of the base and I locked him with my Radar and fired my Super 530 missile .... The missile working by Fire and forget mechanism but I kept tracking it visually ... Because of the flash of the missile at firing I get temporary blindness and lost control of the plane for 2-3 sec. but soon I recovered ... Few seconds later I saw huge explosion infront of me in the direction of the missile I fired and I assumed I hit the plane .... The GCI ordered me to return to base because enemy fighters are closing on me so I lit my after burner full speed and returned to base ...
Later that day we heard an EF-111A crashed into the Syrian air space and 2 pilots were killed ... So the AF command promoted me into Capt. and gave me huge sum of money .. I divided the money ( half to the staff that prepared the aircraft and half for charity work in my home town as I descend from wealthy family and I don't need the money for my self ).
End.
Note : this account was presented through the pilot brother as the Pilot was killed in 2003 during OIF as he was attained the rank of Colonel at that time.

[oldiaf]

His photo before he died in 2003

[mixelflick]

Wow, thanks for sharing.

What did he die from? Do you know??

[oldiaf]

Wow, thanks for sharing.

What did he die from? Do you know??

When American troops reached Karbala gap in early April 2003 ... He was stationed at Mosul AB north of Iraq and he was not fit for flying ... He had Diabetes despite he was only 39 years at that time and he had broken hand ... Nontheless he asked to fly a Mirage in solo ( possibly suicidal mission ) to attack a CVN at the gulf waters ... The AF command approved his request but changed the plan because No way he can made it to the Gulf waters ... So they put more realistic target which is the ground troops at Karbala gap because the danger it represent to Baghdad ... So he tried to scramble from Balad AB ( the same base were F-16s station now ) .. But because of the runway was damaged by bombing he scrambled from nearby street outside the base but the street was in poor condition due to shells fragments the damaged the asphalt so the EFT scratched the ground and cought fire and the frontal tire of the landing gear bursts so he tried to take off prematurly to get rid of the burning external fuel tank but he hit the high tension wires and the plane crashed ... This was the only sortie attempted by Iraqi AF during 2003

[old.iraqi.air.force]

Note : this account was presented through the pilot brother as the Pilot was killed in 2003 during OIF as he was attained the rank of Colonel at that time.

His brother had no idea about all this details, they are very good family and very kind, he did contact us in 2012 to know what really happened to his brother in 2003, i provided him all these details and he sent me copy of Capt. Nafi Najim memoirs book.

[mixelflick]

Wow that's quite a story.

This guy died a hero. He may not have made it off the ground, but that took GUTS..