by Alan Bristow
The political situation grew ever more volatile. At the beginning of February Ayatollah Khomeini flew into Tehran, and within ten days the Army had announced it intended to ‘remain neutral’ in the conflict. Even the Shah’s Imperial Guard collapsed without a fight. Self-appointed ‘Revolutionary Guards’ were administering punishments on street corners, and nowhere could be regarded as safe for foreigners. Islamic militants were increasingly taking over military functions. In the Persian Gulf, workers on the oil rigs were on strike, but our pilots were forced to continue to fly because the helicopter was the only realistic way of moving men, food and the essentials of life to the platforms. But by 20 February we got our last men out of Tehran in the 125. The main phase of Operation Sandstorm could begin.
It was imperative that we knew exactly what helicopters were where, and what state of repair they were in. In order to find out I developed a plain language code, which was carried into Iran by word of mouth. The code was built around phrases that might innocently be used to describe a pheasant shoot, and which would certainly baffle any Iranian listening to our telephone or HF radio conversations, however good his English. A ‘high bird’ was a helicopter in airworthy condition; a ‘low bird’ was one that could not be made flyable in the time available. Numbers were disguised by adding a digit; 18 meant 8, and 122 meant 22. Of the eight Bell 212s left in Iran, we established that all but one was in airworthy condition. The ‘low bird’ was undergoing maintenance on Kharg Island and was in pieces on the hangar floor, awaiting a new engine. We also had a handful of small four-seat Bell JetRangers and Aerospatiale Alouettes in the country, some undergoing maintenance, but it seemed from the start that attempting to bring them all out might jeopardise the operation. The important thing was to get the people out safely, with as many Bell 212s as possible.
We had Bell 212s at three sites – Gachsaran and the nearby Foster-Wheeler camp in the north, Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, about 200 miles north of Bahrain, and Lavan Island further south. My plan was based on the helicopters taking three exit routes from Iran. Those at Gachsaran were to fly to Kuwait after refuelling at a fuel cache they would establish on the coast. The second route was out of Kharg Island to Bahrain, and the third was from Lavan Island to Dubai. It was essential that the breakout be co-ordinated to the minute; we could not allow the Iranians time to take any stragglers hostage. I decided early in the planning stage that the evacuation would take place on a Friday, the Moslem day of prayer, when most people stayed in bed late and the inherent laziness of the Iranians would work in our favour. A 7 am start would give us the best chance of success.
The signal for all helicopters to leave their bases simultaneously and head for their prearranged destinations would be the radio message ‘We have a sandstorm.’ Conveying the code and its meaning to the people in the field was extremely difficult, although we did still have pilots and engineers moving about the country despite the strikes, the violence and the fuel shortages. Only the chief pilots in each area could be appraised of the details of the plan as it affected them, and nobody knew what anybody else was detailed to do. Nothing was set down on paper. We were blessed with some extraordinarily resourceful and capable men in Iran. John Black was chief pilot at Gachsaran, Stuart Clegg at Kharg and Yves Le Roy at Lavan. Other pilots would come on the radio desperate to know what was happening; all we could do was tell them to sit tight and wait.
Although I tried to keep the number of people involved in Operation Sandstorm to a minimum, the cast of conspirators kept growing. George, Jack, Alastair and Bryan had known of the evacuation plan from the start. Engineering manager Bill Petrie and engineers Jean Dennel and Vic Wiltshire were bought in to form a reception committee for each aircraft. Chris Fry made several trips into Iran carrying messages. Pym White and Geoff Francis were the contact men in Dubai and later Sharjah, manning the radio.
One of my major concerns was the reaction of the countries in which the helicopters landed. All the Gulf states relied to a degree on mutual co-operation, however much they disliked each other. The Kuwaitis had little inclination to upset their powerful neighbour, and it was distinctly possible that our helicopters would be impounded or even sent back if the Iranians demanded it. The only solution was to disguise them to throw air traffic control off the scent long enough for us to get them home. I arranged to have false flight plans drawn up for Bell 212s with British registrations coming in from Kirkuk in Iraq, plans that would be filed to coincide with the arrival of our Iranian aircraft. Our people would use British call signs, and the Iranian ‘EP’ registrations would be replaced with British ‘G’ letters on landing. Having British registrations would also facilitate the onward travel of the aircraft. We had a lawyer, Peter Martin, who dealt with the Civil Aviation Authority on registration matters, and I told him to put the change in train. A few hours later he called me.
‘They won’t do it,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘They say it wouldn’t be legal.’
I called the CAA’s legal department and was put through to a Miss White. ‘The situation in Iran is dangerous and unpredictable,’ I said. ‘We are taking special measures to ensure the safety of our personnel, and we need to transfer these helicopters onto the British register urgently.’
‘The only way to do that is to go through the proper channels,’ said Miss White of the CAA. ‘We will liaise with the Iranian authorities, and the proper documentation must be provided. The process will take several months.’
I was furious. ‘Why don’t you just phone up the Ayatollah and tell him we’re trying to make a monkey of him,’ I said facetiously.
‘I beg your pardon?’
I put the phone down. ‘Fuck ’em,’ I said to Bill Petrie. ‘We’ll do it anyway.’ Petrie went out and bought stick-on plastic letters of the type used in the advertising business and we made up copies of some of the ‘G’ registrations on Bell 212s in the hangar at Redhill. These could be rolled into a tight tube and quickly applied over the Iranian ‘EP’ registrations by the engineers who’d be there to greet the incoming helicopters.
Ironically, we had to begin the operation by sending people into Iran. There weren’t enough pilots in the right places to bring out all the helicopters. I called four of my most experienced pilots, Armand Richard, Jean Roux Levrat, Roger Vaughan and Bob Innes into my office. ‘I need volunteers to help with the evacuation of Iran,’ I said. ‘It might be dangerous.’ They stepped forward to a man. I briefed them on exactly what they had to do and sent them on their way. Getting to Kharg Island posed the greatest difficulty. Internal travel in Iran was very difficult, and there was always the risk of trouble with customs and immigration in Tehran. We hired an Arab dhow for cash in Abu Dhabi and put two men ashore at night in a bay I knew well; once on land they would be ignored by the gendarmes, who were used to pilots’ faces changing regularly.
The final piece of the jigsaw fell into place when John Black was able to report that he had laid his fuel cache on the coast between Gachsaran and Kuwait. I decided the breakout would take place the following Friday 9 March 1979, at 7 am. In the plain language code this was transmitted to the pilots in Iran – ‘We would like clarification on some points in your imprest account and will revert to this at 7 am tomorrow.’
We needed to hire freight aircraft to carry the helicopters home quickly without too many questions being asked. This too turned out to pose unforeseen difficulties. I called Mike Keegan, who owned Transmeridian Air Cargo. Mike was on holiday in Spain, and it took some time to track him down.
‘I’d love to help you, Alan, but my aircraft wouldn’t hold a Bell 212,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nothing bigger than a Bristol Britannia.’
One company after another turned me down – British Airways didn’t want to know, Heavylift couldn’t do it, KLM waffled, and I was starting to get worried. With only five days to go Luxair came up trumps, sending a Boeing 747 and two 707s to Sharjah, which I had decided to use in preference to Dubai in o
rder not to jeopardise our contractual arrangements there. In the event, the Luxair crews played their part impeccably. On 7 March I sent Chris Fry to Sharjah, ensured that all our reception engineers were in place in Kuwait, Bahrain and Dubai, and briefed Pym White, who would give the final Sandstorm order over the radio if conditions were suitable on Friday morning. I made arrangements for the false Kirkuk flight plans to be filed at the correct time. Then there was nothing to do but wait, which was not easy. After five weeks of meticulous planning, Operation Sandstorm was now in the hands of the people in the field. I was conscious of the fact that there were several contingencies for which we’d been unable to prepare. If a helicopter was forced down, its occupants would be captured and there’d be nothing we could do about it. Friday morning came, and at 3.55 am London time I instructed Pym White to send out the crucial radio message: ‘As forecast, we have a sandstorm.’
Unbeknownst to me, Yves Le Roy had already risked the entire operation in the most extraordinary manner. Anticipating the ‘Sandstorm’ radio message, he went to the office of the gendarme on Lavan Island at 6 am local time to get his passport. He woke the gendarme by throwing stones at his bedroom window. Fortunately, he played poker regularly with this gendarme and they were on good terms. Le Roy explained he was going on leave, and the sleepy gendarme didn’t think to ask why his ‘leave’ had come up so urgently. He wished Le Roy a good time, handed over the passport and went back to bed. I told Le Roy he should have got his passport the day before, or abandoned it and worried about the consequences later; I gave him short shrift when he complained he’d had to leave a settee and a painting behind!
Despite Le Roy’s folly, three Bell 212s were ready to depart from Lavan Island when the ‘Sandstorm’ message came through. They flew out to sea towards the oil platforms they normally served; to any radar operator watching them from the nearby fighter base at Kish, they would have looked like a normal supply flight to an offshore installation. But once past the Iminoco platform they dropped to wave-top height and kept going as fast at the Bell 212s would carry them. Within an hour, they were approaching Dubai.
Things had gone according to plan at Kharg Island, where two 212s took off at 7 am, flying initially in opposite directions then descending to ten feet up and making directly for Bahrain, 180 miles away. The Kharg air traffic controller was suspicious and contacted Tehran and Gachsaran to find out where the helicopters were going. Nobody knew. The controller then contacted Abadan radar and a general alert was raised, but in Sharjah, Geoff Francis played havoc with the Iranians’ HF radio communications by keying his mike and waving it in the air in an improvised jamming manoeuvre. By 8 am London time it was clear that our Lavan and Kharg helicopters had reached Bahrain and Dubai safely.
Of the two helicopters coming out of Gachsaran, there was no word. They had received the same ‘Sandstorm’ message as the rest, but long after they were due to land in Kuwait there was no sign of them. Bill Petrie was waiting at Kuwait Airport with a small team of engineers, the false registrations tucked under his arm. The ETA on the inbound flight plan from Kirkuk had come and gone; Kuwait air traffic had heard nothing. I sat at home at Cranleigh waiting for news. Perhaps, I thought, I’d better start planning for a hostage situation. Perhaps they’d been shot down. Perhaps they’d had engine failure. There was no contingency for such an event; we didn’t have the resources to rescue people in Iran. The plan had to work – and clearly, something had gone badly wrong. With every hour that passed my fear increased that the operation had unravelled. Finally, shortly after I had a brief call from Petrie – John Black’s two helicopters had arrived with all personnel, had been refuelled quickly and had departed for Bahrain, Dubai and Sharjah.
The relief was total. We were out, apparently without casualties, and with all our Bell 212s apart from the one in pieces on Kharg Island. Not until John Black got back to Britain two days later did I get his story. He’d been scheduled to complete a task for his client on the morning of the evacuation, and to avoid arousing suspicion he’d flown as scheduled. He thought he’d have a better chance of making an unobserved departure at noon, when everyone went to the mosque – but within half an hour of the Lavan and Kharg Island helicopters leaving, urgent radio messages were flying back and forth and the Iranians were getting increasingly suspicious. After convincing the airport manager that the Kharg and Lavan helicopters were inbound to Gachsaran, Black sent his passengers to Foster-Wheeler by road and took off ostensibly to search for the ‘missing’ inbound aircraft. He radioed a series of false position reports to Gachsaran and Kharg while diverting to Foster-Wheeler to pick up his crew and link up with the second 212, then the pair flew to the coast and landed at their prearranged fuel dump. After a rapid refuelling they flew across the Persian Gulf with their skids almost in the water to stay underneath Abadan radar. The Iranians had two F14s airborne looking for them, and had they found them they would have had no defence. But, as is almost always the case in the area in March, visibility was poor and identifying two low-flying helicopters would have been difficult, even for an F14.
When they landed in Kuwait, Bill Petrie and his team were waiting. With the rotors still turning, Petrie sidled up to the helicopter and attached the false registration sticker to the tail-boom while pretending to take a leak. A second engineer did a similar job on the other helicopter. While they were being hastily refuelled, Kuwait was contacted by Abadan to ask whether any Iranian helicopters had come in. The Kuwait controller told them there were none – beneath his windows he could see only a couple of British helicopters that had apparently just come in from Kirkuk. Within twenty minutes the helicopters were on their way again. Bristow Helicopters was banned from Kuwait for four years after the subterfuge was discovered, but it was a small price to pay.
John Black was the last of the twenty-two Bristow Helicopters personnel evacuated on the day to land at Sharjah, where Jean Dennel was in charge of the engineering teams dismantling the 212s for transport back to Britain. With his customary ingenuity Jean managed to shoe-horn them all into the big Luxair jets using a hydraulic lift. They were flown to Luxembourg and loaded onto trucks for onward transport to Redhill via the Zebrugge ferry. Within forty-eight hours of me giving the ‘Sandstorm’ order, all seven helicopters were tucked up in the hangar at Redhill, and all of our personnel were in the pub having a party.
The evacuation made front page headlines across the world. Our oil company customers – particularly the Americans – sent messages of appreciation and support. We had left behind some JetRangers, four Alouettes and one unserviceable Bell 212, and together they were probably worth in excess of $4 million, but we had brought out helicopters worth over $15 million. And of course, we’d written off any chance we might have had of getting our money out of the Iranians. They did, strangely enough, contact us offering to pay the money we were owed if we agreed to come back, but I think we’d all had enough of Iran by then. At the same time, I was ordered by the Tehran Public Prosecutor’s Office to present myself at Evin Prison within two days to explain my actions. I pleaded a prior engagement. To commemorate the success of the evacuation I presented every pilot and engineer involved in Operation Sandstorm with an engraved silver plate bearing a picture of a Bell 212. It was a tremendous team effort. When you see the efforts that go into making the plans and putting them into action, you realise what a high-calibre bunch of people you have on your side.
The loss of the Iranian money made a significant impact on the company, but as usual George Fry saw the sunny side. ‘I don’t know what you’re worried about,’ he said. ‘You’ve nicked those helicopters.’
‘What do you mean, I’ve nicked them?’
‘We only ever owned forty-nine per cent of them,’ George said. ‘Our Iranian partners put in more than half of the money. So we’re not as badly off as we might seem.’
We had got out in good time. Eight months after the Bristow evacuation the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran and took fifty-two
people hostage. The crisis was to last for a year and a half, and in April 1981 the Americans came up with a half-baked plan to rescue their people. They sent in a group of CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters from the USS Nimitz, without sand filters or blade protection tape. It was a fiasco. Because of sandstorms and mechanical problems, three helicopters didn’t even make it to the first staging post in the desert. A fourth crashed into a C130 Hercules full of fuel on the ground, and they limped home with eight men dead, millions of dollars worth of aircraft destroyed and no hostages. Chastened but undeterred, they planned a second rescue mission under the odd name of Operation Credible Sport, but luckily it was abandoned before they even left America because it had the makings of as big a mess as the first. They had equipped a pair of C130s with rocket thrusters fore and aft to allow for an extremely short landing and take-off on a football pitch, but during trials, one of them crashed on final approach to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida when the pilot fired the rockets too soon. The plane virtually stopped in mid-air and hit the runway hard, tearing off the wings and starting a fire.
While planning for Credible Sport was under way I received an unusual call from Lord Forte asking me to come to the Grosvenor House Hotel, where a chap was keen to see me. I knew Charles wouldn’t waste my time so I went up, and it turned out that former President Richard Nixon had taken several suites on the top floor of the hotel. Charles took me up to see him. Before we could get in the lift I was thoroughly searched by one of an army of men in suits and sunglasses, with concealed weapons bulging under their jackets. Nixon was waiting for us. Forte made the introductions. We sat around a low table in his suite. ‘You got your people out of Iran, didn’t you,’ said Nixon. ‘Do you think you could do the same for our people?’