Awacs euro-crew helps watch US skies
The AWACS plane - an air traffic control centre with wings - lifted off at daybreak and turned towards the first pink line of sunlight for another day of protecting the East Coast.
With Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma left far behind, the crew members began staring at radar screens tracking planes hundreds of miles away.
For more than 10 hours, they watched their scopes for wayward aircraft and planes that weren’t transmitting, or ‘‘squawking’’ the proper code.
The overlapping, round-the-clock AWACS patrols over major US cities are intended to prevent terrorist attacks like those that occurred in New York and Washington last month. F15 and F16 fighter jets are on call across the country, ready to shoot down an airliner if necessary.
‘‘I never imagined in my career, in my lifetime, I’d be doing something like this,’’ said JR, an Air Force master sergeant from Tennessee aboard the plane. ‘‘But September 11 changed the world.’’
JR is one of four Americans aboard a flight with an international cast: The Airborne Warning and Control System plane is one of five from a German base participating in the first Nato patrols over American skies.
