On the opening day of the Gulf War, four F/A-18 Hornets raced toward their target deep inside Iraq, each weighed down with 2,000-pound bombs and flying without afterburner. They were in strike mode, not air-to-air combat. Then an E-2 Hawkeye cut through the radio with a warning: “Bandits on your nose, 15 miles.” MiG-21s were closing fast.
Lieutenant Commander Mark Fox locked onto one fighter and launched a Sidewinder, but the missile vanished into the sky with no sign of a hit. With the Iraqi jet still charging toward him, Fox armed a Sparrow for a second shot. What happened next would set the tone for the entire air war—and prove that the F/A-18 Hornet could truly fight and bomb in the same mission.
First Daylight Strike
January 17, 1991 marked the first daylight strike of Operation Desert Storm. The previous night had seen an intense first-strike effort by hundreds of allied aircraft against Iraqi facilities, especially around Baghdad and the major airfields in western Iraq, codenamed H-2 and H-3.
As dawn broke, the operation continued. From the USS Saratoga, four F/A-18C Hornets from Strike Fighter Squadron 81 (VFA-81 “Sunliners”) launched as part of a joint strike with aircraft from the USS John F. Kennedy. Their target: Al Walid Air Base H-3 in western Iraq.
Lieutenant Commander Mark Fox was actually an airborne spare and wasn’t scheduled to cross into Iraq. But when three of the scheduled strikers aborted for various reasons, Fox joined the three remaining aircraft heading inland.
Each Hornet carried a heavy combat load: two AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles, two AIM-7M Sparrow missiles, four Mk.84 bombs weighing 2,000 pounds each, and an external fuel tank. Total bomb weight: 8,000 pounds per aircraft.
Contact
As the four-ship formation headed toward their target, an E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft spotted trouble: two Iraqi MiG-21s, 15 miles ahead, traveling at supersonic speed and coming straight for them.
The closure rate was approximately 1,400 miles per hour. At three miles, Lieutenant Nick “Mongo” Mongillo could see them with his own eyes. “At three miles, I could see them,” Mongillo recalled to The New York Times. That gave them six seconds.
Fox fired first. His AIM-9M Sidewinder streaked away but failed to hit the target. With the MiG-21 still charging toward him, Fox quickly switched to his AIM-7M Sparrow radar-guided missile and fired again.
Mongillo fired at 2.5 miles. “The missile impacted him, and he was almost immediately under my right wing,” he said. “As it hit him I rolled up to see that it was a MIG-21. It was tan, and on fire.”
Both MiG-21s were destroyed within seconds of each other.
First Kills
Mark Fox became the first coalition pilot to shoot down an Iraqi aircraft during Operation Desert Storm. The two MiG-21s would be two of only three Iraqi aircraft shot down by US Navy fighters during the entire Gulf War.
But the mission wasn’t over.
Completing the Mission
Unlike earlier generations of aircraft that specialized in either air-to-air combat or ground attack, the F/A-18 Hornet was designed as a true multirole platform—a strike fighter capable of both missions. This was the theory. On January 17, 1991, Fox and Mongillo proved it in combat.
After shooting down the MiGs, the Hornets continued inland to their assigned target. They successfully bombed H-3 airfield and returned safely to the Saratoga.
The F/A-18 had demonstrated its versatility in the most demanding test possible: real combat against a determined enemy. The Hornet could fight its way to a target, destroy enemy ground positions, fight its way out, and survive.
The Aircraft
The F/A-18 Hornet was the nation’s first all-weather fighter and attack aircraft, designed for traditional strike applications such as interdiction and close air support without compromising its fighter capabilities.
During the mid-1970s, the Navy was directed to evaluate two aircraft under consideration by the U.S. Air Force for a lightweight fighter. While the Air Force selected the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the Navy chose the Northrop YF-17, which after McDonnell-Douglas was selected as prime contractor, became the F/A-18 Hornet.
The F/A-18 entered operational service in 1982. By Desert Storm, the Hornet had proven its reliability, but questions remained about whether any aircraft could truly excel at both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions in the same sortie.
Fox and Mongillo answered that question definitively.
Legacy
Mark Fox went on to become Vice Admiral Mark I. Fox, serving in various command positions before retiring in 2016 as the last Naval aviator with an air-to-air kill still on active duty. He was awarded the Silver Star for his actions on January 17, 1991.
Both F/A-18C Hornets from this engagement are now part of the National Naval Aviation Museum collection, preserving the aircraft that proved the strike-fighter concept in combat.
The January 17 mission set the standard for Desert Storm’s air campaign. Over the following weeks, F-15s would dominate the air-to-air war with 34 confirmed kills, while F/A-18s, F-16s, and other aircraft would deliver devastating ground attacks. But the opening-day engagement proved something unique: an aircraft loaded for a bombing mission could successfully fight off enemy interceptors and complete its strike—a capability that would become standard for modern carrier-based aviation.
The mission demonstrated that the fighter-bomber concept, which had struggled in previous conflicts, had finally matured into a practical reality. The F/A-18 Hornet wasn’t just carrying bombs while it shot down MiGs. It was redefining what naval aviation could accomplish.
