How two F-16 pilots survived a Houthi SAMbush.
About 15 seconds separated F-16 “Wild Weasel” pilots Lt. Col. William “Skate” Parks and Maj. Michael “Danger” Blea from life or death in the night skies over Yemen.
Along with multiple B-2 Spirit bombers and other aircraft, they were part of a complex mission to strike Houthi ballistic missile production facilities in Yemen on March 27, 2025. After the B-2s dropped their bombs, the F-16s peeled away from their targets, hoping to soon be “feet wet” over the Red Sea.
Suddenly, they were targets. Spotting a flash from the ground below, Parks and Blea realized they were in the crosshairs of an incoming surface-to-air missile, the hunter now becoming the hunted.
We needed to make a personal, purposeful decision to start shifting closer to the danger area, which is not a fun decision … definitely one we knew we had to.
—Lt. Col. William Parks, former commander, 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron
The Air Force granted Air & Space Forces Magazine interviews with Parks and Blea to discuss their harrowing mission, for which each earned a Silver Star—just two of fewer than 100 of the valor medals awarded to Airmen since the independent U.S. Air Force was founded in 1947. The Silver Star is the U.S. military’s third-ranking valor award, after the Medal of Honor and service crosses.
Neither the two pilots nor spokespeople for the Air Force would specify the enemy or country involved, but interviews with multiple current and former U.S. officials confirmed that the actions occurred over Yemen and the Red Sea. The squadron’s actions against the Houthis are also referenced in at least one other award citation.
This account of the mission and Operation Rough Rider, the 52-day air campaign against the Houthis, is based on interviews with current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the air campaign.
Other awards were also earned that night. A tanker crew—two pilots and a boom operator who ventured into harm’s way—earned Distinguished Flying Crosses for their efforts. Parks was also awarded a Bronze Star for his overall command effort during the squadron’s deployment.
The operation was noteworthy for its unusual command structure. Ahead of Operation Rough Rider, then-commander of U.S. Central Command, Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, switched control of air operations against the Houthis from Air Forces Central and the Combined Forces Air Component Commander, or CFACC, to the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., led at the time by then-Vice Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley.
It was likely the first time a Middle East air campaign of this magnitude was run by JSOC, a decision that continues to be controversial among some current and retired military officers. While some former special operators say the shift was appropriate because JSOC has decades of experience taking down militant networks, critics of the move say the shift weighted the campaign too much toward hunting Houthi leaders and gave insufficient attention to developing and attacking targets the Houthis use to control the country, including air defense locations. Asked for comment, none of the commands involved, neither U.S. Central Command, Air Forces Central, nor U.S. Special Operations Command, would comment on the decision.
First In, Last Out
Operation Rough Rider, the overall campaign targeting the Houthis, launched on March 15, 2025. The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman was based off the Yemeni coast, its deck brimming with F/A-18 Super Hornet multirole fighters and EA-18 Growler electronic attack jets. Remotely operated MQ-9 Reaper drones joined the operation.
By March 25, half a dozen B-2s were arriving on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, according to open-source data. Though the Air Force declined to comment on the role of the B-2s, people familiar with the operation say they took part in the March 27 attack.
Parks and Blea, members of the 480th Fighter Squadron based at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, deployed to the Middle East in October 2024 and the unit remained there until July 2025. The Spangdahlem fighters are “Wild Weasels,” trained and equipped to suppress enemy air defenses, a mission known as SEAD that dates back to the Vietnam War.
The 480th F-16s carry Active Electronically Scanned Array radars and the laser-guided rocket system known as APKWS (Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System) to counter incoming drones. Their HARM Targeting System, or HTS pods, help them pick out and target enemy SAM sites.
Reflecting their roles of SEAD and protecting other aircraft, the Wild Weasel motto is “First In, Last Out,” which is repeated as a call-and-response among the unit. Their morale patches depict another catchphrase, using only its five-letter acronym—YGBSM—below an image of a confused weasel. The March 27 mission was Parks’ first night operation of the campaign. As the mission commander that night, he had begun his briefings two days prior, pressing his teammates to shift their mindset from operating as multirole fighter-bombers in Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS in Syria to instead focus on the SEAD mission in Yemen.
How JSOC Took Over the Air Campaign Against Yemen
Operation Rough Rider, the air campaign carried out against the Houthis in the spring of 2025, was President Donald Trump’s first foray into military intervention since returning to the White House in January 2025.
It opened with a controversy: Just before the mission began, Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and then-National Security Advisor Michael Waltz exchanged views on the operation in a Signal chat that inadvertently included a journalist, the Atlantic’s chief editor, Jeffrey Goldberg. The conversation, which Goldberg disclosed some days later, became a major distraction and contributed to Waltz’s removal from that post.
But the air operation was remarkable in another way: It was led not by the U.S. Combined Forces Air Component Commander, but rather by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg, N.C.
That put then-Vice Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley (top) in command of the air campaign, a decision made by Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla (bottom), who commanded U.S. Central Command at the time.
This account of Operation Rough Rider is based on interviews with current and former U.S. officials familiar with air operations and military decision-making in the region, as well as airpower and regional security experts.
Trigger Based
Giving the job to JSOC represented a major departure. For the past 35 years, major air campaigns across the Central Command area of operations have been led by the Combined Forces Air Component Commander, following well-established and long-standing military doctrine.
U.S. military doctrine holds that a Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) is responsible for command and control of U.S. aerial assets in each combatant commander’s area of responsibility. Typically, an Air Force general, the JFACC oversees all aircraft in the region, including naval aircraft launched from aircraft carriers in the area, and can sometimes include the launching of Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. In the Middle East, where the commander also organizes the air assets of partner militaries, the JFACC is dubbed CFACC, for combined forces, which encompasses both joint force and allied partners. 
With centralized oversight of the airspace and responsibility for targets, tactics, and strategy, the CFACC is designed and equipped to understand, map, track, and—when called upon—attack and dismantle adversary air defenses, command and control centers, and offensive capabilities.
But for the operation in Yemen, Kurilla favored a different structure, one that drew on his prior experience at JSOC, where he had been assistant commanding general from 2012 to 2014, and his chosen emphasis was trying to kill Houthi leaders and their militant network.
The objective was to strike a body blow against the Houthis and end the threat posed by Yemen’s Houthi militia to international shipping traversing the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The route is used for shipping between Europe and Asia, enabling ships to cut through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, rather than going all the way around the African continent—a savings of some 5,000 miles per trip.
Kurilla’s first step toward assigning the mission to JSOC came in late December 2024, near the end of the Biden administration, when the CENTCOM boss shifted control of the MQ-9 Reapers operating over Yemen to JSOC.
Kurilla wanted the MQ-9s to play a greater role in targeting Houthi leaders, and thought JSOC might be able to take steps to preclude the Houthis from shooting them down.
The next step came with Operation Poseidon Archer. As then-President Joe Biden sought to degrade Houthi capabilities in December 2024 and January 2025, JSOC gained more authority over air operations over Yemen as they increased.
When Operation Rough Rider began in March 2025, the arrangement was continued. Once again, JSOC, under the command of Bradley, a Navy SEAL, was overseeing air operations over Yemen.
JSOC and its parent combatant command, U.S. Special Operations Command, are functional commands, possessing unique capabilities and expertise rather than focusing on a particular region of the world.
Thus, just months after the Yemen campaign was over, Bradley and JSOC also oversaw another unusual U.S. military operation: targeted strikes against alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea. Bradley was in charge of the much-scrutinized first strike on a drug smuggling boat on Sept. 2, 2025, in which two survivors clinging to the wreckage of their vessel were killed after the initial strike. He now commands U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees JSOC, as a four-star admiral.
Neither U.S. Central Command nor U.S. Special Operations Command would comment on the command arrangements for Operation Rough Rider.
Attempts to reach Kurilla for comment were unsuccessful. A CENTCOM spokesperson declined to comment on JSOC’s role in Operation Rough Rider. The spokesperson reiterated CENTCOM remained in overall command of the mission.
Gradually and then Suddenly
JSOC has played a secretive but prominent role in U.S. counter-terrorism operations since the early 2000s. It has a track record in disrupting terrorist networks and killing terrorist leaders in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Its expertise in targeted operations in which the U.S. had clear air superiority stands in stark contrast to running a large air campaign involving both manned and unmanned aircraft against a foe equipped with innovative air defenses.
When Operation Rough Rider began in March 2025, JSOC led CENTCOM’s air campaign, even as the Air Force and the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) retained responsibility for the safety of USAF aircrews both in that operation and throughout the region.
Under this arrangement, JSOC was what the military calls the “supported command,” while Air Forces Central was in support. JSOC determined which targets to strike, the rough time attacks would occur, which weapons to employ, and often which aircraft would employ the munitions.
The CFACC retained authority on how to mitigate the risk to piloted aircraft. Thus, they would determine which planes should be involved in escorting the strike packages.
Sometimes the precise time on target for specific missions was discussed between JSOC and the CFACC, but generally JSOC determined this as well.
A New Threat
The Houthis proved to be a challenging adversary, operating a vexing air defense system unfamiliar to U.S. operators. The full extent of the Houthis’ ad hoc integrated air defense has still not been fully understood by the U.S. military, current and former U.S. officials acknowledged. What was clear at the time, however, was that those defenses went beyond radar-guided surface-to-air missiles and employed passive sensors to detect and target U.S. aircraft.
One system that the Houthis employed was an Iranian-provided surface-to-air missile that homes in on the heat of its target, typically drones and helicopters. It is entirely passive and has no radar signature, can loiter in the skies and uses a proximity fuse so a direct hit is not necessary. Iran has also used this system against MQ-9s during Operation Epic Fury.
“The Houthis are an interesting adversary,” a senior U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “They’ve been fighting for a long time, fighting the Saudis, fighting the Emiratis. In a lot of aspects, they’re seasoned and they’re innovative.”
Over 52 days, JSOC employed U.S. Navy and Air Force fighters and B-2 Spirit bombers and Reapers against the Houthis, according to the U.S. military.
By the time the Trump administration ended the operation on May 6 and declared it a success, it was clear that the Houthis had also shown themselves to be effective and resilient defenders—in short, better than expected.
“They just thumbed their nose at us some more,” said Michael Knights, who studies the Houthis and other Iranian-aligned militias as the head of research at Horizon Engage, a strategic consultancy based in New York.
The Houthis had shot down at least half a dozen MQ-9s, building on their record over the previous two years, when they had downed at least six more.
Overflight restrictions imposed by some countries in the region, particularly in the initial phases of the campaign, forced some U.S. aircraft to fly a circuitous route before they could engage against the Houthis, in patterns that were sometimes predictable. Predictability increases risks, and history is rife with similar problems in past air campaigns, from World War II through Vietnam and more recently in Operations Deny Flight and Allied Force, when U.S. F-16s and an F-117 were shot down during the Bosnian and Kosovo wars.
USAF operators typically try to vary flight operations to avoid predictability. But some former and current officials say JSOC did not always give that perspective sufficient emphasis.
The Pentagon said the campaign against the Houthis significantly degraded the group’s capabilities, striking more than 1,000 targets and killing many Houthi leaders and operators.
But the U.S. never eliminated the top Houthi leadership and the deal to end the operation, in which the Houthis agreed to no longer target commercial shipping, did not extend to ending strikes on Israel. Indeed, the day before the cease-fire was announced, the Houthis attacked Israel’s Tel Aviv airport—which was not covered by the deal.
“It was not comfortable for the Houthis,” said Knights, but they held on.
“They took the best the U.S. had to throw at them, and they survived.”
The U.S. military declined to identify the F-16s’ home base in the Middle East, but airspace restrictions sent them over the Red Sea as they penetrated and exited Yemeni airspace.
On the night of March 27, they followed that route along with two other F-16s from their squadron. The mission was SEAD, intended to damage or destroy Houthi air defenses while also distracting the Houthis from the other part of the attack mission.
“The Wild Weasel mantra is to have the adversaries look at us and pay attention to us,” Parks said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re desiring, wanting to, or even expecting to start getting fully shot at.”
No sooner had the mission begun than it was clear the Houthis knew an operation was underway. Initially, the ground below began to sparkle like fireworks, but which were in fact a sign that they had been observed and, as some officials later assessed, that Houthi air defenders were signaling each other.
“They know we’re here. We need them paying attention to us,” Parks said. “We need to make a personal, purposeful decision to start shifting closer to the danger area, which is not a fun decision, but it was definitely one that we knew we had to do.”
U.S. forces never fully grasped the full extent of the Houthis’ ad hoc integrated air defense, say current and former U.S. officials. Later analysis indicates the Houthis combined radar-guided SAMs with visual observers and electro-optical and infrared sensors (EO/IR), passive means that U.S. sensors didn’t pick up.
“We tried to understand what exactly was happening,” a senior U.S. defense official told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “We made a concerted effort to understand all the pieces of information that they were obtaining to build their picture. And I don’t think we ever had 100 percent clarity on that.”
Parks and Blea had reached their objective near the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and each fired one anti-radiation AGM-88 HARM missile. The two HARMs were among nearly 50 fired within the campaign during almost two dozen engagements against surface-to-air missile sites and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA).
The Yemen campaign was the first by the U.S. military since 2011’s Operation Odyssey Dawn against Libya to employ HARMs.
The missiles found their targets and the Houthi air defenses appeared silenced. But as the U.S. jets began to exit the country, the Houthis were playing possum, waiting for their chance to respond.
“The main strike goes through, and it happens in an instant, and then it was over, and everything was quiet,” Parks said. The bombers’ mission was successful and the strike packages began their exit. “There’s no AAA, there’s no nothing,” Parks recalled. “The systems we’ve seen on air had turned off air, and now we’re getting ready to go home.”
But the aircraft were being tracked as they flew toward the Red Sea and the Houthis didn’t turn on their radars until they had a SAM ready to launch at the American jets, a so-called SAMbush.
“It was an ambush because we did not get much indication ahead of time,” Parks said. “We only had about 15 to 20 seconds of indications ahead of time. … It’s fair to say I do think they were using a lot of visual observation and EO/IR.”
“Another reason that you might contextualize this as an ambush was the fact that this had happened after the strike occurred,” he added. “The actual missiles started flying post-strike mission.”
Parks had few options, so he headed straight for the missile—a method of last resort—as he tried to confuse the munition and cause it to overshoot.
“You see this bright white light, and you see the rocket with the first missile launch, and it’s essentially directly underneath our position,” Parks said. “We have enough time to make essentially a hard turn into this missile. It goes past right underneath my left wing, close enough I can hear the rumble, and that’s something that’s stuck with me to this day.”
Parks had survived, but now Blea’s life hung in the balance.
“I watched the launch, and then I can see the missile the entire time,” Blea said. “Then I start my threat reacting, according to how we train. And then I vividly remember thinking, this is my only chance. I have one chance to make this miss.”
It did—barely. “It was flying within feet of the front of my nose,” Blea said. Thirty feet, he estimated later, a distance that is less than the length of his aircraft—an F-16 is just under 50 feet long.
For the next quarter hour, the pilots would pull defensive maneuvers and dispense countermeasures.
“It is 15 minutes of that for a total of six missiles being shot at the two of us, and just working as a team to make sure that we are always making moves in the right direction to get safe, while also making sure that we are defending from these missiles,” Blea said.
Because F-16s burn more fuel pulling Gs, the pilots now faced another challenge: Running out of gas would almost certainly lead to ejecting over hostile territory or into the Red Sea, neither one an appealing option.
In the event an F-16 engine is starved of fuel and flames out, pilots can keep their jets airborne for a few minutes using the aircraft’s emergency power unit, fueled by hydrazine. The fly-by-wire F-16 becomes uncontrollable, however, once it loses its fly-by-wire controls.
“I did not want to punch out because I ran out of gas,” Parks said. “We obviously were utilizing a much higher fuel rate. We’re on afterburner for some of these higher G maneuvers. And so, considering we did that over 10 minutes, and we were leaving already with our planned recovery fuel, it almost immediately put us well behind on fuel.”
Recognizing the risk, the Air Forces Central’s Combined Air Operations Center, which was responsible for flight safety, swung into action.
A tanker crew was dispatched closer to enemy territory and into harm’s way. Blea headed for fuel first.
“I will forever owe a debt of gratitude to the tanker crews that night, because without question, without knowing the full details of what was going on, they immediately were just willing to support,” Blea said.
Parks’ Bronze Star citation notes the accomplishments of the 480th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron. Parks was the unit’s commander, leading 56 Airmen and 12 F-16s. The squadron was one of the first to use APKWS as drone-killing air-to-air weapons and helped develop the “innovative tactics” employed to defeat enemy drones. It also used older AIM-9M Sidewinders, claiming the first air-to-air kill by an AIM-9M in over 30 years. The unit scored 108 total aerial kills of drones and cruise missiles during the deployment. Parks is now assigned to a role at the Pentagon while Blea remains with the 480th.
“The 480th executed a high-risk campaign against Houthi forces, employing over 134 bombs and 47 AGM-88 missiles while flying 9,000 hours and 1.4 thousand sorties under grave risk from 22 surface-to-air missile and air defense artillery engagements,” the award citation states.
But the most rewarding response came when the pilots finally landed back at base and were greeted by the dozens of maintainers and other crew who kept the aircraft flying.
“I turn the corner into a parking spot, and I see probably in the range of 30 people standing up front from there,” Blea said. “That’s kind of the first time you allow your mind to kind of go back to that moment.”
As Blea was unstrapping from his ejection seat, one of his close friends climbed up the ladder, exclaiming, “Dude, you’re home!”
Then Parks approached Blea.
“Nothing needs to be said,” Blea said, recalling the moment. “We look at each other, and we’re like, ‘Wow!’ One, what a night. And two, we’re both here. We did what we were meant to do. … We both made it.”