Very interesting, esp. the range of 32nm when the Canberra was hit. That is a lot further than I thought. Griffiths, from what I have read, the Argentine radar control at Stanley also thought a Mirage had been downed, it was not until a bit later that repeated attempts to contact ‘BACO 2’ failed and they realised B-108 was down.
What is also interesting is this talk of the Mirage escort having to avoid these multiple SAMS. I’d be curious to know whether this was inbound to the target or outbound. From what I read, the Cans were lit up after the bombed and turned for home, and then hit very shortly after this turn. Not being a Sea Dart expert and knowing the speed of travel for 32nm, one would think this implied they had been lit up prior to this turn and fired on before. Maybe Griffiths can confirm his thoughts on this. Also the sad irony that the very escorts sent to protect them were responsible in way for the detection of the whole flight.
Either way, it just shows what a tough old girl the Canberra was to take that Sea Dart hit right near the No.1 fuel tank and not just outrightly explode. Very brave of Captain Pastran to buy as much time as possible for Capt. Casado to eject, which sadly was not to be.
B-109, the other Canberra in ‘BACO flight’ claims it had a hell of ride home and had to avoid AAA and more SAMs, using their countermeasures. This certainly doesn’t tally with the single Sea Dart launch that night, but then who’s to say what one might mistake in such circumstances.
Jualbo, thanks for the info as well. I heard that the 2 Para man had damaged ear drums, or possibly that was from an earlier raid in May. Graham Colbeck in ‘3 Para to the Falklands’ remembers the sound and concussion from one of the night bombing raids prior to Mt. Longdon. I wonder if this Eagle Base attack is the same incident? My records also show a telephone exchange was damaged in one raid – need to check the date on that.
We detected this raid way out on our aged 965-surveillance radar. They appeared on that radar as one ‘long’ contact and were locked up by both our 909’s for what appeared to be a long time. If my memory is right they were flying at 26,000ft…the aircraft we were locked onto that is. They just kept coming and coming and I remember that before we fired one or two aircraft (it’s hard to tell with 965 – wavelength 1.2metres) turned away which left one contact (again hard to tell) that continued towards our Intercept Point (IP). We launched as they approached, however, B-108 may well have been turning at the time the missile impacted. After releasing a solid rocket fuel booster which is around 8nm Seadart flies at mach 2.5. It is not possible that Seadart engaged B-109 on their return leg but if the pilot looking over his shoulder at the war fighting on the ground…who knows what he thought he saw.
This is where I estimate Cardiff’s position was at 01:30 (GMT) 14 June 1982:
Shortly after the conflict I was informed that our Seadart severed B-108 into two pieces but Captain Pastran stayed with his aircraft by now spinning madly out of control and he ejected at around 14,000ft. Is this likely? If any of you have read the books written by Rear Admiral Woodward and Commander ‘Sharkey’ Ward you will read that HMS Cardiff and a single Seadart destroyed B-108 that morning (GMT).
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