.
So they sacrificed a 20 million dollar asset?
I think they were seeking a SAM site. I think they needed a plausible reason to scramble two F-16s for an INCONUS mission.
By the way, the jets came from Portland, OR. National Guard.
Why do that when you’ve got a perfectly good Naval Air Base on Whidbey Island?
If you cite ‘posse comitatus’, then I’d say you could use any of the three NG squadrons on the base.
Some kid with minimal training and time on a video game version of a cockpit could not perform the manuevers that plan executed.
I still think it was a drone flight. Getting a plane that looks like an Alaska Airlines flight would not be all that hard either.
It just smells stupid.