🇾🇪⚔️🇺🇸 Air and Space Forces Magazine, the official journal of the US Air & Space Forces Association, published yesterday the most extensive account of a lesser-known Yemeni anti-air missile ambush against two US F-16 fighter jets in March of 2025.

About 15 seconds separated F-16 “Wild Weasel” pilots Lt. Col. William “Skate” Parks and Maj. Michael “Danger” Blea from life or death in the night skies over Yemen.

Along with multiple B-2 Spirit bombers and other aircraft, they were part of a complex mission to strike Houthi ballistic missile production facilities in Yemen on March 27, 2025. The B-2s dropped their bombs, the F-16s peeled away from their targets, hoping to soon be “feet wet” over the Red Sea.

But suddenly, they were targets. Spotting a flash from the ground below, Parks and Blea realized they were in the crosshairs of an incoming surface-to-air missile, the hunter now becoming the hunted.

Operation Rough Rider, the overall campaign targeting the Houthis, launched on March 15, 2025. The aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman was based off the Yemeni coast, its deck brimming with F/A-18 Super Hornet multirole fighters and EA-18 Growler electronic attack jets. Remotely operated MQ-9 Reaper drones joined the operation.

No sooner had the mission begun than it was clear the Houthis knew an operation was underway. Initially, the ground below began to sparkle like fireworks, but which were in fact a sign that they had been observed and, as some officials later assessed, that Houthi air defenders were signaling each other.

U.S. forces never fully grasped the full extent of the Houthis’ ad hoc integrated air defense, say current and former U.S. officials. Later analysis indicates the Houthis combined radar-guided SAMs with visual observers and electro-optical and infrared sensors, passive means that U.S. sensors didn’t pick up.

The missiles found their targets and the Houthi air defenses appeared silenced. But as the U.S. jets began to exit the country, the Houthis were playing possum, waiting for their chance to respond.

But the aircraft were being tracked as they flew toward the Red Sea and the Houthis didn’t turn on their radars until they had a SAM ready to launch at the American jets, a so-called SAMbush.

“It was an ambush because we did not get much indication ahead of time,” Parks. “We only had about 15-20 seconds of indications ahead of time. … It’s fair to say I do think they were using a lot of visual observation and EO/IR.”

Parks had few options, so he headed straight for the missile—a method of last resort—as he tried to confuse the munition and cause it to overshoot.

Continued ⬇️

🔗 https://www.airandspaceforces.com/life-death-yemen-f-16-pilots-sambush/