The Hind Heist — Operation Mount Hope III
During the Chadian-Libyan conflict, a fully armed Libya supplied by the Soviet Union fought against the French-backed Chadian army that was mostly made up of a ragtag force and Toyota pickups. During the conflict, large numbers of Libyan tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery, fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters were captured or destroyed. In some cases, Libya sent its own aircraft to bomb abandoned Libyan equipment to stop it being any use to the Chadians.
In March 1987, the Chadian’s attacked a Libyan airbase at Ouadi Doum. At the base, there was a Libyan Air Force Mi-25. The Mi-25 was an export version of the Soviet Mi-25 gunship nicknamed the Hind by NATO for identification purposes. The Hind was a mix between an attack helicopter that could travel at high speed while being able to be a troop carrier that could carry eight fully armed troops and twelve partially armed troops. Allowing the helicopter to perform two roles in one, giving the aircraft supreme importance.
The West did not have a helicopter of the Hinds capabilities with the US-made Apache only able to perform the attack helicopter role and unable to carry troops, giving the USSR a favourable advantage in helicopter technology that the United States wanted to close.
The Central Intelligence agency (CIA) keen to gain the upper hand in every aspect in the Cold War, wanted to study the Hind to try and recreate a similar aircraft for the US and her allies. The Chadian-Libyan conflict gave the CIA the opportunity to get hold of a Hind and study its technology.
The United States negotiated with Chad to conduct an operation to retrieve the Hind and received permission to carry out the operation, the Chadians stated that they would not provide assistance. For allowing access, the Chadians received two million dollars and Stinger missiles from the CIA. The CIA needed a team to retrieve the Hind and this where the 160th Special operation Aviation regiment nicknamed The Night stalkers come in who were given the task to retrieve the helicopter; the regiment was created for operations likes this.
Seventy-five troops of Night stalkers arrived in Chad's capital N’Djamena with two C-5 Galaxy transport planes that were carrying with two MH-47s a variant of the Chinook. That had a higher capability to heavy lift cargo by straps over long-range the process is called an underslung load, making it the perfect tool to remove the Hind from the airbase in Northern Chad.
One MH-47 was used to carry troops and parts of the Hind that were taken off, and the second MH-47 Chinook was to move the Hinds shell. As soon as The MH-47 Chinooks were offloaded, one flew to Ouadi Doum airbase to started the process of striping the helicopter for transport. When the team reached, the Hind was still parked in the desert, which is a perfect location to preserve an aircraft. The first team were joined by the second MH-47 Chinook shortly after. The team evaded Libyan air defensive by using the night as cover, France provided air support with there Mirage F1’S and also provided some ground troops to help with the operation. The team evaded detection by the Libyans and retrieved the Hind. The Hind was attached by an underslung to the MH-47 Chinook as it hovered above the striped Hind. Then the second Chinook with stripped parts and the rest of the US personal left Ouadi Doum for the capital N’Djamena where two C-5 Gallaxys were waiting to take back to the United States.
The journey back need the assistances from two C-130 Hercules for fuel the Chinooks landed at two friendly bases for fuel at Faya-Largeau and Moussoro. Despite sandstorms, the MH-47 Chinooks reached N’Djamena with the Hind. The Mi-25 Hind was loaded onto a C-5 transport plane and the MH-47 Chinooks on another C-5 and transported to the United States.
