Issue Date: March 24, 1973
Libya:
U.S. Transport Fired On
A U.S. Air Force transport plane on a military mission over international waters in the eastern
Mediterranean was fired on March 21 by two Libyan jets. The transport was not hit.
Washington officials said March 22 that the plane, a C-130 transport with listening equipment,
tape recorders and language specialists aboard, was on a "communications eavesdropping"
mission south of Malta designed to check radar frequencies. After the plane had reached air
space covered by Libyan radar, crewmen heard Tripoli controllers dispatching jets to intercept
the transport and ordering them to fire on the U.S. plane after making visual contact.
When the C-130 was 82 miles from the coast, according to the officials, the jets gave signals to
follow them and land, but the plane ignored the order. The Libyan aircraft then opened fire and
the U.S. craft was able to escape into cloud formations and return to Athens.
U.S. Secretary of State William P. Rogers summoned the Libyan charge d'affaires in Washington
March 21 and delivered a protest in which he described the incident as "provocative." A similar
note was handed to Libyan government officials by the U.S. charge in Tripoli.
The Washington Post reported March 23 that in November 1972 the U.S. had rejected Libyan
efforts to establish a "restricted air zone" of 100 miles around Tripoli, which was on the coast,
claiming that such a move would violate the 1944 Chicago Civil Aviation Convention, to which
Libya had been a party.