Chopper Ops

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The American air base at Al-Khadi was a very secret place.

Located deep in the western Saudi desert, it appeared on no maps. The only road leading to it was 173 miles long, winding and unmarked. Barely a dozen people in the Saudi military knew the air base existed, and still they weren’t privy to its location. Even the U.S. Army engineers who built the place back in 1989 weren’t sure exactly where it was. They had been trucked to the site blindfolded when construction began. When they finished, they left the same way.

Air operations at Al-Khadi took place only at night. Extremely strict blackout restrictions were always in effect then. No lights. No radios. No electronic gear of any kind was permitted to be turned on unless absolutely necessary. Even the lighting of a match was forbidden without proper authorization.

Only one runway was open at Al-Khadi this fateful night. The rest of the base was shut up tight. The weather had something to do with this. An unusual desert fog had settled over the base earlier in the evening; it was so thick by midnight it resembled a snowstorm. The Saudis called this cold and wet phenomena el-fadehal, “unwanted visitor from the west.” Traditionally, it was an omen of bad luck.

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