The US Navy F/A-18 piloted by Lt Cdr Scott Speicher was shot down on the first night of the war by a missile fired by a MiG-25. The kill was reportedly made with a R-40TD missile fired from a MiG-25PDS flown by Lt. Zuhair Dawood of the 84th squadron of the IrAF. Captain Speicher was apparently buried by nomadic Bedouin tribesmen close to where his jet was shot down in a remote area of Anbar province.
In another incident, an Iraqi MiG-25PD, after eluding eight U.S. Air Force F-15s, fired three missiles at EF-111A Raven electronic warfare aircraft, forcing them to abort their mission and leave attacking aircraft without electronic jamming support.
In yet another incident, two MiG-25s approached a pair of F-15s, fired missiles (which were evaded by the F-15s), and then outran the American fighters. Two more F-15s joined the pursuit, and a total of ten air-to-air missiles were fired at the MiG-25s, although none reached them. According to the same sources, at least one F-111 was also forced to abort its mission by a MiG-25 on the first 24 hours of hostilities, during an air raid over Tikrit.
About the Allied Coalition The second (and last) air-air kill was recorded by a pilot named Jameel Sayhood on January nineteenth. Flying a Mig 29 he shot down a RAF Tornado GR1A. The RAF plane was piloted by Gary Lennox, and Adrian Weeks.ameel Sayhood was then shot down by the two pilots of McDonnell Douglas F-15C Eagle (F-15C, AF85-0122/EG, 58TFS / 33TFW, pilot Craig William Underhill; F-15C, AF85-0114/EG, 58TFS / 33TFW, pilot Cesar Antonio Rodriguez). American pilots announced shot down of two MiG-29B aircrafts, but Iraqi Air Force actually lost only one aircraft MiG-29, piloted by Jameel Sayhood .
LCDR Scott Speicher was flying an F/A-18 Hornet fighter when he was shot down 100 miles west of Baghdad, on the night of January 17, 1991, the first night of Operation Desert Storm. His plane crashed in a remote, uninhabited wasteland known as Tulul ad Dulaym 33°14′35.81″N 42°21′18.14″E he was the first combat casualty for American forces in the war.
The U.S. Navy maintained in a 1997 document that Speicher was downed by a surface-to-air missile.However, an unclassified summary of a 2001 CIA report suggests that Speicher's aircraft was shot down by a missile fired from an Iraqi aircraft, a MiG-25; flown by Lt. Zuhair Dawood, 84th squadron of the IQAF. Speicher was at 28,000 feet and travelling at 0.92 Mach (540 Knots) when the front of the aircraft suffered a catastrophic event. The impact from the R-40 missile threw the aircraft laterally off its flight path between fifty and sixty degrees with a resulting 6 g minimum load. A pilot on the same mission stated: "I'm telling you right now, don't believe what you're being told. It was that MiG that shot Spike down."
The day after the shoot-down, Speicher was placed on MIA status. On May 22, 1991, after the end of the Gulf War, Speicher's status was changed to Killed in Action/Body Not Recovered (KIA/BNR). In July 1992, Speicher's widow Joanne married Navy Commander Buddy Harris, who was a friend and fellow naval aviator of Speicher's.Harris later became a strong advocate for searching for Speicher, often meeting with U.S. officials.
In December 1993, a military official from Qatar discovered the wreckage of a plane in the desert, which was subsequently identified as Speicher's aircraft. The canopy was a good distance from the rest of the aircraft, suggesting Speicher had tried to eject.In April 1994, a U.S. satellite photographed apparent human-made symbols on the desert floor near the wreck's location, which might possibly be Speicher's E & E (Escape and Evade) sign, suggesting that Speicher might have survived the crash. A covert American operation to inspect the site was considered, but rejected by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili as too risky.
In December 1995, working through the International Committee of the Red Cross, investigators from the Navy and Army's Central Identification Laboratory went to Iraq and conducted an excavation of the crash site. Bedouin nomads gave investigators a flight uniform that was likely Speicher's, with his name supposedly cut out of it, but the investigators concluded it had been planted there.Other evidence led investigators to further conclude Speicher had likely ejected, and was not in the plane at the time it crashed. In September 1996, the Secretary of the Navy in a new review reaffirmed the presumptive finding of death. Speicher was given a tomb at Arlington National Cemetery.[
In 1997, a Defense Department document leaked to The New York Times showed that the Pentagon had not been forthcoming with information previously requested by U.S. Senator Rod Grams. Senator Grams publicly accused the Pentagon of misleading him, and joined with Senator Robert C. Smith in calling for an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Speicher case was taken up by the National Alliance of Families, which had been quite active in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue.Speculative theories were developed as to the circumstances of Speicher's shoot-down, and assuming he was still alive, why the U.S. military might not want to find him and why Iraq might not want to return him.
n January 2001, the Secretary of the Navy changed Speicher's status to "missing in action." This was the first time the Defense Department had ever made such a change. In conjunction with the change in classification, Speicher was promoted to commander, in accordance with Navy practice for POWs held a long time. The 2001 CIA report stated that he may have survived by ejecting. Rumors from Iraq said that Speicher was captive, walked with a limp, and had facial scars. In July 2002, Speicher was further promoted to captain.
Speicher's possible situation became a more high-profile issue in the build-up to war. In March 2002, the Washington Times ran five successive front-page articles about it, National Review Online ran a long piece on it, and on September 12, 2002, President George W. Bush mentioned Speicher in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly as part of his case for war against Iraq. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida also took a strong interest in the case.Speicher's status was changed again to "missing/captured" on October 11, 2002, one day after the United States Congress authorized the use of military force in Iraq. U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gordon England said, "While the information available to me now does not prove definitively that Capt. Speicher is alive and in Iraqi custody, I am personally convinced the Iraqis seized him sometime after his plane went down. Further, it is my firm belief that the government of Iraq knows what happened to Capt. Speicher."
Upon the 2003 invasion of Iraq in March 2003, a major investigation on the ground began, that also further increased public attention to the matter.In April 2003, Speicher's possible initials were discovered in a cell at Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad. Investigators did not think it was significant because a similar carving of "MJN" was found directly above the "MSS" scrawl. Subsequent tests on hair found in the cell's drain did not match Speicher's DNA. Senator Nelson went to Iraq to visit the prison personally. Speicher's name was also found on a document in Iraq, dated January 2003, that had the names of prisoners being held in the country. Officials stated that the 90-page document offered no evidence of whether Speicher was alive and might have been written either to provide an accounting of former Iraqi POWs or to confuse the U.S. military. In any case, Speicher's whereabouts were yet to be discovered.
Over time, as the U.S. occupation increasingly gained control over Anbar Province, it became apparent that Speicher was not a captive.
On January 5, 2009, the U.S. Navy held a review board to consider officially closing the case. The review board recommended that the Pentagon continue investigating what happened to Speicher. The recommendation went to Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter who had the final decision. Speicher's family believed and was worried that would change the status of Captain Speicher to KIA and declared they would oppose such action.
On March 10, 2009, the Secretary of the Navy declared that Captain Speicher's status was changed from "Missing/Captured" back to "Missing-in-Action.
On August 2, 2009, the Navy reported that Speicher's remains were found in Iraq by United States Marines belonging to MNF-W's Task Force Military Police. His jawbone was used to identify him after study at the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs at Dover Air Force Base. According to local civilians, Speicher was buried by Bedouins after his plane was shot down. The evidence proved that Speicher did not survive the crash. Senator Nelson attributed the delayed finding to the culture of the locality: "These Bedouins roam around in the desert, they don't stay in one place, and it just took this time to find the specific site."
Speicher's family expressed gratitude that the Defense Department had stayed with the case and that closure was now available
About the reference:
"Intelligence Community Assessment of the Lieutenant Commander Speicher Case". 27 March 2001. FOIA Electronic Reading Room. CIA. 10 September 2006
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