A key objective of Operation Deliberate Force was to force the Bosnian Serbs to lift the siege of Sarajevo by re-opening the city's airport for humanitarian-aid flights run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Two days after the end of the NATO bombing on 15 September, the first-aid aircraft were landing at the airport, with alliance fighters providing close protection. A month later, the air-bridge is still open with between 12 and 20 flights a week being made into Sarajevo by UK, Canadian, French, German and US transport aircraft.
Sqn Ldr Stuart Vince, commander of the Royal Air Force detachment at Ancona, Italy, anchor of the air-bridge, says that the RAF alone is flying three lifts a day, carrying on average 150t of aid supplies a week.
Since July 1992, the RAF's No 47 (Special Forces) Squadron has been tasked to keep the air-bridge open, with a single specially equipped Lockheed Martin Hercules HC1P The aircraft features extra armour, as well as flare/chaff dispensers, to help protect the aircraft from small arms and missile threats. Over the past three-and-a-half years, only two RAF aircraft have been hit, out of more the than 50 UNHCR aircraft which have collected bullets.
Siege busters: a RAF Hercules is unloaded in Sarajevo
Source: Flight International
