One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

September 30: Reflecting ongoing reductions in the post–Cold War Air
Force, two former Strategic Air Command bases closed—Castle in California
and Plattsburgh in New York.
October 28–December 18: In an operation called VIGILANT SENTINEL, the
Air Force first tested the air expeditionary force concept, deploying F–16
Fighting Falcons of the 20th Fighter Wing and the 347th Wing to
Bahrain.
December 6: Transports began airlifting American troops and equipment
into Bosnia in support of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeeping
operation called JOINT ENDEAVOR. The operation
enforced a peace agreement initialed by the presidents of Bosnia,
Croatia, and Serbia at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and
later signed in Paris, France.
1996
1995–96
January 9: After three-and-a-half years, Operation PROVIDE PROMISE officially
ended. During this international operation—the longest sustained
humanitarian airlift in history—the U.S. Air Force flew more
than 4,500 sorties to deliver 62,802 metric tons of cargo to Sarajevo
and other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
April 3: Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown was among the people killed
when the 76th Airlift Squadron CT–43 transport airplane in which he
was a passenger crashed into a hillside near Dubrovnik, Croatia. Secretary
Brown had been on an economic-development mission to Serbia.
April 9–25: Operation ASSURED RESPONSE evacuated by air more than
2,000 noncombatants from Liberia during civil unrest there. For this
operation, USAF aircraft, including MH–53 Pave Low helicopters,
KC–135 Stratotankers, C–130 Hercules cargo airplanes, MC–130 Combat
Talons, and AC–130 Spectre aircraft flew 94 missions.
May 5: Col. Betty L. Mullis, USAF, assumed command of the 940th Air Refueling
Wing, becoming the first woman to command a flying wing.
May 31: The Air Force awarded the largest military contracts ever for the
production of 80 additional C–17 Globemaster III transports over the
course of seven years at a cost of $16.2 billion. The new aircraft would
bring the C–17 fleet up to a total of 120, which would allow the retirement
of most of the aging C–141 Starlifters.
June 11: Air Combat Command acquired its first E–8 joint surveillance target
attack radar system aircraft. The E–8 airplane, capable of providing
detailed radar information about ground targets, had been tested
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