As a massive fireball lit the sky ahead, Colonel Yiftach Spector and Captain Ilan Ramon, flying their f－16s, were at the very rear of the formation.
When he heard the frantic voice of Nahumi crackling through his headset—"Enemy flak dead ahead, climb NOW, climb NOW!"—Yiftach was still several kilometres behind him.
It wasn't that Yiftach was deliberately lagging; he kept having to wipe the characteristic, prominent Jewish nose that helped him stay awake. He'd skipped the cold pills to keep his mind sharp, but after the long flight his body finally gave in—his nose was about to run, and he had to help it.
That made it impossible to hold tight formation, yet he couldn't break radio silence, so he drifted farther from flight leader Nahumi.
Ramon, last in the entire formation, had noticed the ace pilot was off his game today; instead of overtaking, he simply tucked in behind him.
An F-16 isn't a car—it has no rear-view mirror—and with no early-warning feed, "Chisel" flight leader Nahumi never realised that two of his four-ship had fallen behind.
Thanks to that gap, when the aircraft ahead flew straight into the ambush, Yiftach and Ramon didn't follow them up; they banked right early and headed for the planned strike point.
Climbing wasn't the best option, but the lead aircraft had flown in too close and had no choice. The two lagging jets, forewarned, bypassed the flak site and turned straight for the reactor.
Dropping these unguided bombs demanded superb technique—when to dive, when to pickle—so the formation had chosen the lake as the attack-run starting point: ten minutes' flight to 1,000 m, then a 1-km final, diving from altitude exactly as rehearsed.
What you see from the air isn't what you see on the ground, and the angle changes everything; pick the wrong one and you'll flash past the target before you can release.
But there was no alternative now—these two jets were the last hope.
Watching the f－15s thunder down, Yiftach felt calm. Even if their cannon wiped out every gunner, what then? The mistake was made; their best use now was to keep enemy fighters off him. That flak site proved the enemy already knew the raid was coming.
Yiftach flew on, hunting for landmarks, ready to drop his bomb at speed over the reactor—though his nose still threatened to leak.
Ramon's eyes were blood-shot. Last night they'd joked that if anyone became a martyr it would probably be him—yet the pilots ahead had already gone first.
Revenge—revenge! Ramon snapped his oxygen mask on; below 3,000 m you don't need it, but he needed the calm, the focus, so he breathed the bottled oxygen.
Twenty kilometres at fighter speed is barely a minute; seconds later both jets were closing on the Osirak reactor, now at 1,000 m.
"Barrage Balloons!" They stared ahead, brows furrowed.
Dozens of gaudy balloons clogged the sky for hundreds of metres; flying over them was fine—diving through to bomb was something else.
Hit one of the steel cables at speed and the aircraft would explode in an instant.
"Plan stays the same—dive-bomb." Only two of them were left; Colonel outranks Captain, so Ramon obeyed Yiftach.
"Roger!" Ramon answered over the radio, voice heavy with fatalism—flying into that balloon forest was almost certain death.
Skip the dive and you're left with level bombing—fly straight and level, pickle the bombs; accuracy is hopeless unless you're a B-52 doing carpet.
But the MK-84 was the biggest weapon in inventory, the only one that could punch through the reactor's thick concrete.
Seconds later they were in the final phase.
Yiftach had already switched to bomb mode, but as he rolled into the dive he flicked the selector back to cannon.
Between the balloons stood that tall circular concrete shell with its horseshoe berm—the Iraqi "Tamuz-1" nuclear reactor.
Iftachi shoved the stick forward and the plane nosed over, diving faster and faster as the contours of the earth sharpened.
"Barrage balloons—child's play!" Iftachi snarled, thumbing the firing button.
Brrrt! The M61A1 Vulcan 20 mm six-barrel Gatling slung under the belly spun up, spitting tongues of fire that shredded the nearby balloons and sent them plummeting.
Good—switch to bombs. His left hand flicked the selector switch, shifting control to the bomb circuit.
Only one release button exists, on the stick; choosing which weapon it fires is done through the selector switches.
The head-up display now projected on the windscreen: just bracket the circular concrete building in the pipper, drop to 200 m, pickle, and pull out.
By now he ignored the cockpit gauges; Iftachi's eyes were locked on the target swelling in the glass.
Below, the anti-aircraft batteries opened up at the diving aircraft, but the obsolete guns couldn't track the steep descent and sprayed wildly as the jet kept plummeting.
Raymon followed Iftachi into the dive.
Watching the ace open fire in a screaming dive, Raymon was awestruck; he could never pull that off—especially not with two heavy bombs still slung under the wings.
What Raymon didn't know was that Iftachi's vision was already tunneling, the crushing g-loads dragging him into a blackout.
Normally five g was nothing, but today he was off—his circulation sluggish. Under the brutal maneuver blood couldn't reach his brain; darkness crept in from the edges of his sight.
He'd done all he could. With no other choice, Iftachi squeezed the release.
Two massive bombs slipped cleanly from the wing pylons, arcing gracefully toward the ground.
The fighter felt suddenly light; summoning the last of his strength, Iftachi hauled the stick back—any later and he'd auger in.
A heartbeat earlier Raymon had been admiring the ace's skill; now his eyes snapped wide. The bombs weren't falling toward the reactor—they were heading for the turbine hall ahead.
(The reactor only supplies heat; water is turned to high-pressure steam that drives turbines, spinning generators or propulsion shafts.)
Damn it—wrong run-in, too late in the dive, angle too shallow. He'd overshoot the reactor.
Pull up and re-attack? Raymon glanced at the rushing earth, clenched his teeth, and pushed the stick harder forward.
Steepen the dive—go vertical at ninety degrees. He would not miss the reactor this time.
The nose dropped until the jet pointed straight at the ground. The HUD red circle settled on the circular building; Raymon armed the weapons, ready to pickle.
Such a dive demanded nerves of steel: 0.1 s late equaled death; pickle too early and the bombs would miss.
Raymon's eyes flicked to the altimeter spinning wildly—200 m coming fast.
His right finger rested on the stick's release button. The moment of truth: pickle, yank back—any slower and he'd kiss the dirt, a patty for Saddam to swallow without salt or sauce.
Suddenly the airframe shook violently; the world outside whipped into a dizzy spin.
A spin!
(A spin: the aircraft, stalled, spirals down a tight, steep helix. The F-16's flight-control computer normally prevents it, but for maximum agility pilots can override—removing every safety net.)
At this altitude recovery is impossible; only one option remains—eject.
Raymon didn't hesitate. He yanked the ejection handle. Four canopy-breakers fired—bang!—punching holes through the transparency; the seat rocket ignited, blasting him through the shattered canopy into the sky.
A second later the fighter slammed into the ground and exploded in a fireball.