Hill Air Force Base's 421st Fighter Squadron is deploying to Saudi Arabia to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, Hill officials confirmed Thursday.
The first contingent, 55 men and women, left Hill Wednesday for the assignment, which is to last 1 1/2 months. At midnight Saturday night, 18 pilots will take off in their F-16s. Soon after, around 3:15 a.m. Sunday, a final contingent of 145 members of the squadron will leave by charter.The troops, part of Hill's 388th Fighter Squadron, will join Operation Southern Watch, which enforces the United Nations' ban on Iraqi flights over the southern part of that country. The wing's other two fighter squadrons, the 4th and the 34th, are scheduled for 45-day deployments later this year.
The contingents will stay at Prince Sultan Air Force Base, Saudi Arabia, a high-security fortress considered much safer than the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran. A terrorist bombing at Khobar Towers in 1996 killed 19 Americans and wounded 500 others, including several from Hill.